


I 




Class _3\f_fl__5M. 



B3l^ 



Coipght]^" 

COHTRIGHT DEPOSIT 



Ci^e tmon of tou 



iftcij. 2Dr. ^illtt'^ 2&oofej6f 



COME YE APART. 

DR. MILLER'S YEAR BOOK. 

GLIMPSES THROUGH LIFE'S WINDOWS. 

MAKING THE MOST OF LIFE. 

PERSONAL FRIENDSHIPS OF JESUS. 

SILENT TIMES. 

STRENGTH AND BEAUTY. 

THE BUILDING OF CHARACTER. 

THE EVERY DAY OF LIFE. 

THE GOLDEN GATE OF PRAYER. 

THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

THE LESSON OF LOVE. 

THE MINISTRY OF COMFORT. 

THE STORY OF A BUSY LIFE. 

THE UPPER CURRENTS. 

THINGS TO LIVE FOR. 

YOUNG PEOPLE'S PROBLfeMS. 



^otMtt^ 



A GENTLE HEART. 

BY THE STILL WATERS. 

GIRLS; FAULTS AND IDEALS. 

HOW? WHEN? WHERE? 

IN PERFECT PEACE. 

LOVING MY NEIGHBOUR. 

MARY OF BETHANY. 

SECRETS OF HAPPY HOME LIFE. 

SUMMER GATHERING. 

THE BLESSING OF CHEERFULNESS. 

THE FACE OF THE MASTER. 

THE MARRIAGE ALTAR. 

THE SECRET OF GLADNESS. 

THE TRANSFIGURED LIFE. 

TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW. 

UNTO THE HILLS. 

YOUNG MEN; FAULTS AND IDEALS. 






2.e00on of ^o'nt 




.^BY 



Jp'E. MILLEE, D.D. 



AUTHOR OF ** SILENT TIMES," **THE UPPER 
CURRENTS," "IN PERFECT PEACE," ETC., ETC. 

:> ? -) ) 1 :) ■> i©i-,«5^ 

3 >35 5 3 5 IS 



'i S' 



"^5 every love hue is lighij 
So every grace is love.^' 



l^cbJ iorft 



THOMAS Y. CROWE LL & CO. 
PUBLISHERS 



THE LIBRARY OF^; \ 
CONGRESS. 


Two Copies 


Received j 


SEP 19 


1903 


Copyright 

li4>. x/- 

CLA& ^- 
COPY 


Entry [ 

XXc No 
k ^ 
B. 






Copyright, 190S, hy T, F. Crowell Sf Co. 



Published, September, 1903 



PREFACE 



XO learn how to love is to learn how to live. 
The lesson is a long one^ but it is the great 
business of life to master it. The Master not 
only taught the lesson in words^ but also set it 
down for u^ in a life^ his own life. To follow 
Christ is to practise this great lesson^ learning 
more of it day by day^ until school is out and 

we go home. 

J. R. M. 
Philadelphia, U. S. A. 



c 



TITLES OF CHAPTERS 



I. The Lesson of Love Page 3 

II. Things that are Lovely 17 

III. To Suffer and Love On 31 

IV. The Hurt of Flattery 45 
V. ''Nor Life" 59 

VI. Having the Mind of Christ 73 

VII. The Second Mile 85 

VIII. Losing Self in Christ 95 

IX. Growing by Abandonment 107 

X. Leaving Things Undone 119 

XI Living for the Best Things 129 

XII. Serving and Following Christ 143 

XIII. Citizenship in Heaven 155 

XIV. Sent 169 
XV. Gladdened to Gladden 181 

XVI. The Gentleness of Christ 191 

XVII. Would Our Way be Better? 203 

XVIII. In the Father's Hands 215 

XIX. Evening, Morning, One Day 227 

XX. True Friendship's Wishes 239 

XXI. Christ in Our Everydays 253 

XXn. In Tune with God 265 



%\)t JLe00on of loije 



[1] 



For life, with all it yields of joy and woe^ 
And hope and fear . . . 

Is just our chance o' the prize of learning love^ — 
How love might be, hath been indeed^ and is. 

— Robert Browning. 



[2] 



CHAPTER FIRST 



Cl^e tmon of JLoije 




HRISTIAN love has to be 
learned. There Is natural 
affection which does not 
need to be learned — the 
love of parents for chil- 
dren, of children for par- 
ents, of friend for friend. But it is not nat- 
ural to love our enemies, to love unlovable 
people, to be unselfish, to return kindness for 
unkindness. We have to learn this love, and it 
is the great business of life to do it. 
The lesson is written out for us in many 
parts of the Scriptures. We have it, for ex- 
ample, in Saint Paul's wonderful chapter on 
love. It includes patience. "Love suffereth 
long." It is not easy to live with all sorts of 
people and to keep sweet always. In a letter 
from a friend the problem is stated thus: 
"How to live victoriously when one does not 
feel well, has many tasks and duties, and must 
[3] 



Ci^e JLejSjSon of lotie 



work with a cranky person." That is about 
the problem for many good people, and it is 
not easy. There is only one way of solving it 
— by love. And natural love will not suffice. 
Some mothers solve it with their children. 
Some gentle wives solve it with exacting, 
thoughtless, ungentle husbands. Now and 
then a friend solves it with a friend to whom it 
is not easy to be a friend. But the Christian is 
to learn to solve it with every kind of person — 
however disagreeable, unlovable, and uncon- 
genial — ^he is never to come to the end of his 
loving. It takes almost infinite patience to 
love thus, more, at least, than many of us can 
command. 

Love is kind. Kindness has been called the 
small coin of love. It is not shown in large 
deeds so much as in countless little gentle 
things. Jesus wrought a few great miracles, 
but in between the miracles, all the days, hours, 
and minutes were filled with kindnesses, little 
words and acts and looks which no one count- 
ed. Love should always abound in kindnesses. 
Our love should not be kept for great things, 
[4] 



Ci^e Hmon of toU 



but should flow out continually, like fragrance 
from a flower, as part of our own life. Love 
is not something to be added to a busy life, as 
some men have their avocations to which they 
turn to rest them from their great vocations. 

* * Most men know love but as a part of life ; 
They hide it in some corner of the breast 
Even from themselves ; and only when they rest, 
In the brief pauses of that earthly strife 
Wherewith our world might else be not so rife. 
They draw it forth , . . 
And hold it up to mother, child, or wife. 
Ah me ! Why may not life and love be one f " 

Love is generous. It "envieth not." We 
have learned the lesson well only when we can 
rejoice in the joy of others. This is quite as 
much a part of true love's sympathy as it is 
to share the griefs of others. "Rejoice with 
them that rejoice ; weep with them that weep." 
We can do the latter more easily than the 
former. When we find one in misfortune or 
in trouble, it is not hard to sympathize with 
him. But when others are honored more than 
[5] 



Ci^e lejsjson of lobe 



we are, or prospered more, or when they win 
success while we fail, or are very happy while 
we are less so, is it as easy for us to be gen- 
uinely glad as it would be to be really sorry if 
they were in some kind of grief? 
Love is unselfish. It "seeketh not its own." 
Unselfishness is at the very heart of all true 
love. It is the obtruding of self into our 
thoughts, feelings, and acts that spoils much 
of our living. We love people until it would 
cost us something to continue to love them and 
then we stop short. We accept serious respon- 
sibility when we say to anyone: "I will be 
your friend." That is what Jesus said to his 
friends, and then he loved to the uttermost. 
That is what "seeketh not its own" means. It 
may cost us years of self-denial and exhaust- 
ing service. 

Love keeps sweet amid all irritation. It "is 
not provoked." It probably is too much to 
hope for in this world of infirmity and sinful- 
ness, that one shall ever attain a condition in 
life in which there shall be nothing that would 
naturally excite bitter or unkindly feeling. 
[6] 



C]^e tmon ot JLote 



Indeed, we could not learn to be sweet-tem- 
pered with nothing to test and exercise our 
temper. The problem then is not to find a 
paradise of sweetness in which to live — we shall 
have to wait for Heaven for that — ^but in com- 
mon human conditions, with infirmities and 
failings even in our best friends, with a thou- 
sand things in the experiences of each day to 
try our temper, still and always to keep sweet. 
Good temper is an admirable quality of love. 
For some people it is easier, too, than for oth- 
ers. But it is part of the lesson of love which 
we should all set ourselves to learn, whether it 
is easy or hard. It can be learned, too — it 
should be learned, for it is a Christian duty, 
one of the fruits of the Spirit, an essential ele- 
ment in Christian culture. We should never 
apologize for ill-temper as only an amiable 
weakness or a pardonable infirmity — we should 
be ashamed to yield to it. Touchy people 
should determine to conquer their wretched 
weakness and sin, by which God is dishonored, 
and the love of tender hearts hurt. George 
Macdonald speaks of the hurt of love : 
[7] 



Ci^e tmon of loije 

Thou knowest, Saviour, its hurt and its sorrows^ 
Didst rescue its joy by tlie might of thy pain : 

Lord of all yesterdays, days and to-morrows, 
Help us to love on in the hope of thy gain. 

Love is meek. That is what Saint Paul's 
words, "taketh no account of evil" seem to 
mean. It does not keep a list of slights, of- 
fences and injustices. "How often shall I for- 
give?'' Peter asked. He thought he was going 
a long way in the path of Christian love when 
he suggested that seven times would be enough. 
But Jesus said : "Oh, not seven times only, but 
seventy times seven" — that is, indefinitely. 
Let your love be simply inexhaustible. 
Nothing is harder than to have to endure 
wrong and ingratitude, to love and to have 
love unrequited. It is not easy to keep on lov- 
ing when this is one's experience. Yet that is 
what our lesson teaches us. A writer tells a 
story of a man who had given up his whole 
life to love. Then there came a time when he 
knew that all he cared for was slipping away 
from him. At length after ten years of lov- 
ing and serving, a letter came which told him 
[8] 



Ci^e tmon of lotje 



that all he had cherished so tenderly was lost, 
that the life of those years was utterly blotted 
out. Yet though stunned by the blow, and 
left alone and desolate, he was not crushed, 
but went on with his life-work in quietness and 
hope. 

When a friend asked him how he could take 
up a new life after such blighting disappoint- 
ment, he said, "It was because I never lost love. 
Whatever happened to me, I went on loving; 
whatever change came in others, I was always 
constant to love. When the crash threw down 
my palace, though I was miserable, I was not 
embittered; though I was stripped of every- 
thing, my soul was still young ; love had kept 
the springs of life flowing in my heart." 
This is a secret which all of us should seek 
to learn. It is easy to let bitterness creep into 
the heart when one has to endure wrong day 
after day, week after week, possibly year 
after year. There are women who know what 
this means. There are men, too, who meet this 
experience. Too often the darkness creeps into 
their souls and puts out the lights of love. 
[9] 



Ci^e lejsison of JLote 



Nothing on earth Is sadder than this. It is a 
sort of death that is worse than dying. What- 
ever wrongs or cruelties we have to endure we 
should always keep love in our hearts. We 
should never allow its lamps to be put out. We 
should keep on loving and thus be more than 
conquerors over all the hardness that besets us. 
In all such experiences love will save us, keep 
us alive — -and nothing else will. 
Sometimes one finds a sweet fresh-water 
spring beside the sea. When the tide is low 
you may take your cup and drink of the pure 
well and the water is fresh as if it flowed from 
the bosom of a rock on the hillside. Then the 
sea rolls over it and for long hours the brack- 
ish floods bury the little spring out of sight. 
But when the tide draws back again, you find 
the water sweet as ever. So love should be in 
our hearts when the black, brackish floods of 
wrong have swept over them. The love should 
never lose its sweetness. 

Another quality of love to be learned is see- 
ing the good and not the evil in others. That 
appears to be the meaning of the words, "Re- 
[10] 



m^t tt^^on of lotje 

joiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth 
with the truth ; . . . beheveth all things, 
hopeth all things." There is in some people 
a disposition to see evil in others and even to 
be secretly glad of it. This is a satanic spirit. 
Our Lord's counsel, "Judge not," condemns 
it. We are not to put on our strongest glasses 
in order to look at others and see the flaws and 
faults in them. Rather we should turn our 
glasses on ourselves, to find our own defects, 
while we try to discover the good there is in 
our neighbor. It is amazing how some people 
are worried o^er other people's defects and 
sins and how little concern meanwhile the un- 
seemly things in themselves give them. In 
one of Swedenborg's visions he saw "a hell 
where everybody is completely busy in mak- 
ing everybody else virtuous." The irony of 
this vision is obvious and wholesome. 
But that is not what Christian love does. It 
looks for the good in others and seeks to woo it 
out into something better. If only we would 
learn this lesson and think of finding the good 
in others, instead of the evil, covering all un- 

[ 11 ] 



Cl^e JLejsjson of toU 



lovely things, hoping all beautiful things, how 
changed all life would be ! How much nearer 
together we should be drawn if only we saw 
each other more clearly, more truly ! 

** God! that men would see a little clear er^ 
Or judge less harshly when they cannot see, 

Qod ! that men might draw a little nearer 
To one another. They'd 'be nearer thee.^^ 

These are parts of the great lesson. How 
can we learn it? Christ only can teach it to 
us. We must let the heaven-life enter our 
hearts. "When we were playing out in the 
barn to-day," said Marjorie, "the sun shone 
in through a knot-hole high up in one of the 
boards, and it made a path, a golden path, 
away up. I guess if anybody could have 
walked up on it and slipped out where it came 
in, he would have found a road-way into 
heaven.'' 

The child's fancy was very beautiful. Chris- 
tian love is like such a shining pencil of light 
breaking into our world through a rift in the 
sky. If we could walk up on it, we should find 
[12] 



Cl^e le00on of loiie 



a foot-path into heaven. This love is heaven's 
life brought down to earth. Jesus Christ 
brought it down when he came. He was the 
first who ever loved in this way in our world 
He wants all his followers to learn to love in 
the same way — "As I have loved you, that ye 
also love one another." He will teach us the 
lesson, if we will only learn it. When we have 
mastered it we are ready for heaven. 



[13] 



Cl^tngjci tl^at are toUlv 



[15] 



This was not the beauty — oh^ nothing like this. 
That to young Nourmahal gave such magic of bliss ; 
But that loveliness^ ever in motion^ which plays 
Like the light upon Autumn^s soft shadowy days. 

Now here and now there^ giving warmth as it flies 
From the lips to the cheeky from the cheek to the eyes; 
Now melting in mist and now breaking in gleams, 
Like the glimpses a saint has of heaven in his dreams. 

— Moore. 

My crown is in my hearty not on my head^ 
Nor decked with diamonds and Indian stones^ 
Nor to be seen : my crown is called content ; 
A crown it is^ that seldom kings enjoy. 

— Shakespeare^ 



[16] 



CHAPTER SECOND 



Cl^tnfijS ti^at are loljelt 




OTHING that is not beau- 
tiful is fit for a place in a 
Christly life. Strength is 
essential, but strength need 
not be rugged and uncome- 
ly : art has learned to give 
it graceful form. Truth and honesty, justice 
and right are prime elements in a worthy life, 
but they need not be unbeautiful. Sometimes, 
it is true, we see men in whom these great qual- 
ities are strongly marked, yet in whom beauty 
is lacking. Some even boast of being blunt 
men, meaning that they say what they think, 
not caring how they may say it. But there is 
no reason why any sturdy quality of character 
should be wanting in loveliness. We may clothe 
the homeliest virtue in garments of grace. We 
may be honest and yet gentle and kindly. We 
may be true and live very sweetly. 
In a cluster of "whatsoevers" indicating the 
[17] 



Ci^e lejsjson of lotie 



principal qualities in an ideal character. Saint 
Paul includes "whatsoever things are lovely." 
Perhaps it has been too much the habit in 
Christian teachers to overlook beauty as an 
essential feature of a complete life. Christ, 
who is always to be our model, was "altogether 
lovely." He was strong, and true, and just, 
and righteous, but there was no flaw in his 
character, no defect in his life. We should 
never tolerate in ourselves anything that is not 
beautiful. 

Some things are not lovely. There are 
ways that are not winning. There are people 
whose personality is not attractive. They fail 
to draw others to them. They neither make 
close friends nor keep friends. They may be 
good in the general fabric of their character 
— honest, truthful, upright, just. No one 
could condemn them or charge them with any- 
thing really wrong. Yet they are not lovable 
in their dispositions. There is something in 
them that hinders their popularity, that mars 
their influence, that interferes with their use- 
fulness. 

[18] 



Cluing?! tl^at ate loljelt 

Simplicity is one element in loveliness. Ar- 
tificiality is never beautiful. There are many 
people who suffer greatly in their lives by rea- 
son of their affectations. They are unnatural 
in their manners. They seem always to be 
acting under the restraint of rules. It was 
said the other day of a good man that he talks 
even in common conversation as if he were de- 
livering an oration. There are some who use 
a great deal of exaggerated language in com- 
plimenting their friends, even in expressing 
the most commonplace feelings. There are 
those whose very walk shows a studied air, as 
if they were conscious of a certain importance, 
a burden of greatness, thinking that wher- 
ever they appear everybody's eyes follow them 
with a sort of admiration and worship. All 
affectations in manner, in speech, in dress, in 
bearing, in disposition, are unlovely. They 
are classed with insincerities. Only the simple, 
unaffected, natural life is truly beautiful. 
Selfishness is unlovely. It has many ways, 
too, of showing itself. Indeed, it cannot be 
hid — it crops out continually, in act and word 
[19] 



Ci^e XejS0on of JLoije 



and disposition. There are those who are dis- 
obKging, never willing to put themselves out 
to do a favor or to show a kindness to others. 
They may talk unselfishly, protesting their in- 
terest in people and their friendship for them, 
but when the test comes self asserts itself. Self- 
ishness is simply the absence of love — ^love seek- 
eth not its own. Unselfishness is lovely. It 
does not count the cost of serving. It loves 
unto the uttermost and never fails in helpful- 
ness. It thinks of others, not only as of itself, 
but, like the Master, forgets itself altogether. 
This old lesson, old as the Christ himself, is 
rephrased in this fragment of conversation in 
one of Anthony Hope's books : 
" 'Life isn't taking in only ; it's giving out, 
too. And it's not giving out only words or 
deeds or things we've made. It's giving our- 
selves out, too — fully, freely.' 
" 'Giving ourselves out.f^' 

" 'Yes, to other people. Giving ourselves in 
comradeship, in understanding, in joy, in love. 
Fancy not having found that out before !' " 
Another lovely attribute in the Christian 
[20] 



€:]^fng0 ti^at ate toMv 

life is peace. It never worries. It is never 
fretted. It is quiet, not noisy. It is the qual- 
ity of a self-disciplined life. Hurry is always 
unbeautiful. The lovely life is never in haste, 
yet never loiters. It is self-poised. If women 
knew how much a quiet, self-controlled manner 
means in the making up of a winsome person- 
ality, they would seek for it more than for 
great riches. Nervous flurry, especially in a 
woman, is unlovely. It shows itself in flustered 
manners, in hasty and ofttimes rash speech, 
too often in ungovemed temper. The exhorta- 
tion, "Be ambitious to be quiet," does not refer 
merely to speech, but especially to the inner 
spirit, to the manner, to the whole bearing of 
the life. 

Nothing is lovelier in life than the spirit of 
contentment. Fretting mars the beauty of 
many a face. Discontent spoils all one's 
world. Out of whatever window he looks the 
discontented person sees something that is not 
pleasing. If there be a contented mind there 
is only good seen everywhere. The happiest 
homes in the world are not those in which are 
[21] 



Cl^e tmon of toU 

the finest carpets, the costhest pictures, the 
most luxurious furniture, but those in which 
glad, happy hearts dwell. A mind at rest 
glorifies the plainest surroundings and even 
the hardest conditions. Saint Paul was in a 
prison when he wrote: "I have learned, in 
whatsoever state I am, therein to be content." 
The secret was in himself. 
"I once talked with a Rosicrucian about the 
Great Secret," said Addison. "He talked of 
it as a spirit that lived in an emerald, and con- 
verted everything that was near it to the high- 
est perfection. 'It gives lustre to the sun,' he 
said, 'and water to the diamond. It irradiates 
every metal, and enriches lead with the prop- 
erty of gold. It brightens smoke into flame, 
flame into light, and light into glory. A sin- 
gle ray dissipates pain and care from the per- 
son on whom it falls.' Then I found his great 
secret was Content." 

Love is the great master-secret of all beau- 
tiful things in character; love deals also with 
the manner of life's expression, as well as with 
its acts. Many good deeds are done in a very 
[22] 



Ci^mujs ti^at are Lobel^ 

unbeautiful way. Some people do kindnesses 
in such an unfitting way that those they help 
wish they had not tried to help them. There 
is a great deal of thoughtlessness, too, in many 
people. They love their friends and are ready 
to do for them anything the friends need, even 
at much cost or great sacrifice, but they fail 
utterly in the amenities and graces which to- 
gether are the charm and sweetener of all beau- 
tiful helpfulness. Love in the heart should 
always inspire whatsoever things are lovely in 
behavior, in conduct, in disposition ; and noth- 
ing that gives pain to others, either in act, 
word, tone, or manner, can be lovely. 
Self-love is the secret of many of the most 
unlovely things in disposition, in character, in 
conduct. A writer says : "All extreme sensi- 
tiveness, fastidiousness, suspicion, readiness to 
take offence, and tenacity of what we think 
our due, come from self-love, as does the un- 
worthy secret gratification we sometimes feel 
when another is humbled or mortified ; the cold 
indifference, the harshness of our criticism, the 
unfairness and hastiness of our judgments, our 
[23] 



Ci^e JLejSjson of jlotie 



bitterness toward those we dislike, and many 
other faults which must more or less rise up 
before most men's conscience, when they ques- 
tion it sincerely as to how far they do indeed 
love their neighbors as Christ has loved 
them." 

We are told that love "doth not behave it- 
self unseemly." There are many things which 
cannot be said to be sinful, which are yet un- 
seemly. They are not beautiful. They are 
unrefined. All displays of uncontrolled tem- 
per are unbecoming, unfit. All harsh and un- 
kind words are unmeet. Rudeness in every 
form is out of harmony with the spirit of 
love. 

The matter of manners should never be re- 
garded as unimportant. Expression is a true 
index of character. In reading and speaking, 
a great deal depends upon pronunciation, ac- 
cent, emphasis, tone, and the fine shadings of 
the voice which help in interpreting thought, 
feeling, emotion. To a refined and cultivated 
ear, defects in expression, inelegances in utter- 
ance, are painful. The charm of good elo- 
[24] 



Ci^tngjs ti^at ate iLotielt 

quence lies in its simplicity, its naturalness, 
its niceties of expression, and in its true inter- 
pretation of thought. Beautiful living, in like 
manner, is not only refined and cultivated, but 
also interprets truly what is best and most 
beautiful in the heart. 

Anything unseemly is a worse marring in a 
woman than in a man. Men are of a coarser 
grain than women, of more common material. 
Unseemly things do not appear so unseemly 
in a man as in a woman. It is expected that 
every woman shall be beautiful, not only in 
her character, but also in her behavior, not 
only in what she does, but in the way she does 
it. There are books which claim to tell people 
how to behave, but true refinement cannot be 
learned from even the best of these. There is 
many a woman who is thoroughly familiar 
with the rules and requirements of society, 
whose life is full of unseemly things. 
A young woman writes that on three succes- 
sive Sundays she heard three diff^erent preach- 
ers, and that each of them spoke very ear- 
nestly on the importance of self-control. This 
[25] 



Ci^e tt^^on of loije 



persistent recurrence of the same lesson had 
set her to thinking of the subject, and she wrote 
with some alarm regarding her own lack of 
self-mastery. She saw that she had been al- 
lowing herself to fall into certain habits which 
are very unseemly, which are marring the 
sweetness of her disposition and making her 
disagreeable. She is living in a boarding- 
house, and she began to see that she had been 
behaving herself in a very selfish way toward 
her hostess. She had permitted herself to be- 
come exacting and critical, finding fault 
with everything. She had been acting like a 
peevish, fretful child, losing her temper and 
giving way to her feelings in a most unseemly 
fashion. 

This young woman's frank confession of 
the faults into which she sees that she has 
drifted shows how unconscious we may be of 
unseemly things in our life and conduct. Othey 
people see them, however, though we do not. 
It does not take long for one to get a reputa- 
tion as a discontented person, as unreasonable, 
as hard to get along with, as disagreeable, or 
[26] 



Cl^ingjs ti^at ate iLotelt 

as a gossip, or a meddler in other people's mat- 
ters. We need to keep it in our prayers con- 
tinually, that we may have the gift to see our- 
selves as others see us. It would be a good 
thing if we all were to read the thirteenth of 
First Corinthians at least once a week all 
through our life. It would be like looking into 
a mirror which would expose the unseemly 
things in our behavior, that we might cure 
them. 

The cure for unseemliness is not found in 
books of etiquette, nor in any mere external 
culture, but in love in the heart. Rudeness 
of all kinds soon yields to refinement of spirit. 
Love makes the roughest man gentle. It in- 
spires in us all beautiful things — gentleness, 
kindness, good temper, thought fulness, oblig- 
ingness, every form of unselfishness, the spirit 
of serving, and the truest courtesy. Jesus was 
the truest gentleman that ever lived, and all 
who really follow him will catch his spirit and 
learn the beauty of his refinement. 



[27] 



Co puffer anD loije flDn 



[29] 



Here^ and here alone. 
Is given thee to suffer for God's sake. 
In the other worlds we shall more perfectly 
Serve him and love him^ praise him^ work for him^ 
Grow near and nearer him with all delight^ 
But then we shall not any more he called 
To suffer^ which is our appointment here. 
Canst thou not suffer^ then^ one hour or two f 
If he should call thee from thy cross to-day^ 
Saying^ It is finished ! — that hard cross of thine 
From which thou pray est for deliverance^ 
Thinkest thou not some passion of regret 
Would overcome thee ? Thou wouldst say^ " So soon t 
Let me go hack and suffer yet awhile 
More patiently : — I have not yet praised God,^^ 

— H. E. H. King. 



[30] 



CHAPTER THIRD 

Co puffer and toU flDn 




CHRISTIAN is not called 
to an easy, comfortable, 
self-indulgent life, but to 
self-denial, sacrifice, cross- 
bearing. When two of his 
disciples asked for the 
first places in his kingdom, the Master said to 
them : "Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able 
to drink the cup I am about to drink ?^^ Speak- 
ing of suffering wrongfully. Saint Peter says, 
"Hereunto were ye called" — ^that is, ye were 
called to suffer wrongfully. He is writing to 
servants or slaves. Ofttimes they would find 
their position very hard. Their masters would 
be severe, sometimes cruel. They are ex- 
horted, however, to submit quietly, not only to 
the good and gentle, but also to the froward. 
"If when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take 
it patiently, this is acceptable with God. For 
hereunto were ye called." 
[31] 



Ci^e iLe^jSon ot toU 



None of us are slaves, but many of us have 
to work under others, and the others are not al- 
ways "good and gentle." The problem in 
many lives is how to maintain the Christian 
spirit, how to be Christlike in one's place under 
others who are unreasonable, exacting, unjust, 
or unkind. The New Testament teaching is 
that we are to do our work well, to manifest 
the patient, gentle spirit of Christ, whatever 
our hardships and wrongs may be. Back of 
the human masters stands another Master, and 
it is for him we are really working. He is the 
one we are to seek to please in all that we do. 
This changes the character of all service. Our 
Master would not be pleased if we did our work 
negligently, if we skimped it, or if we showed 
bitterness even under hard and unjust treat- 
ment. 

The example of Christ in suffering is the 
copy set for us. "Christ also suffered for you, 
leaving you an example, that ye should follow 
his steps." What does this example teach us? 
For one thing, Christ endured his suffering 
quietly and patiently. "Who, when he was 
[32] 



Co puffer and JLoiie €)n 

reviled, reviled not again." Most of our 
Lord's sufferings were at the hands of men. 
He was a friend of men, and sought always to 
do them good. But this kindness met only un- 
kindness in return. Those he sought to save 
rejected him. "He came unto his own, and 
his own received him not." We all know the 
story of Christ's wonderful love. He never 
ceased doing good, and men never ceased per- 
secuting him. At last they nailed him on a 
cross, but really they were crucifying him, 
driving nails into his hands and feet and heart, 
all the three years of his public ministry. Yet 
his love was never chilled by the enmity and 
cruelty of men. He never had a bitter thought 
in his heart. Even on the cross, when human 
hate had done its worst, he loved on as tender- 
ly, as patiently, as sweetly, as if he had been 
receiving only love from the world all the 
years. 

This is part of the lesson set for us, and it is 
a lesson not easy to learn. It is hard to receive 
injury from others and always to return kind- 
ness for it. Especially is it hard to suffer 
[33] 



Ci^e lejsjson of tou 



wrongfully and keep one's heart sweet and lov- 
ing through it all. Yet that is the lesson, and 
we find right here one of life's most serious 
problems. We cannot avoid suffering at the 
hands of others. In the truest and most con- 
genial friendships there sometimes are things 
which occasion pain. Even in the sweetest 
home there is frequent need of mutual forbear- 
ance and forgiveness. Then there are many 
who have to suffer continually, ofttimes cruelly 
and bitterly, at the hands of others. 
Here then is the problem — to keep love in 
the heart through all unkindness, ingratitude, 
and injustice ; never to allow bitterness to creep 
in ; never to give way to any feeling of resent- 
ment ; always to be forgiving, loving, ready to 
help. It was thus that Christ went through 
his life to the very end, praying for his ene- 
mies even on his cross, and giving his life to 
save those who were driving him out of his 
own world. 

We should remember that no one can really 

hurt our life but ourselves. Men may rob us 

of our money. They may injure us in many 

[34] 



Co puffer and iLot»e €>n 

ways. They may cut our bodies to pieces. But 
they cannot touch our real life. All the wrongs 
they can inflict upon us will do us no actual 
injury. But if we give way to anger, if we let 
bitterness creep into our hearts, if we grow un- 
forgiving or resentful, we have hurt ourselves. 
If on the other hand, we keep love in our hearts 
under all the human wrong we suffer we have 
won the victory over every wrong. 
Another of Christ's steps in his suffering is 
shown in the words, "when he suffered, 
threatened not, but committed himself to him 
that judgeth righteously." He could have 
avenged himself on his enemies. He could 
have smitten them down, when they wronged 
him so sorely. "Thinkest thou," he said 
to his disciples, who wished to interfere to save 
him from his enemies, "Thinkest thou that 
I cannot beseech my Father, and he shall even 
now send me more than twelve legions of an- 
gels?" But he did not do it. He did nothing 
to check the wicked plots of his enemies. He 
lifted no finger to resist their malignant as- 
saults. 

[35] 



C]^e tmon of JLoi3e 



"But these were terrible wrongs against 
him," you say. "Why did he submit to them 
so quietly? Is there no justice in the world? 
Must wicked men be allowed to go on forever 
in their wickedness and cruelty?" Here is the 
explanation: "He committed himself to him 
that judgeth righteously"; that is, into the 
hands of his Father. This means two things. 
It means that he committed the sins of his ene- 
mies, with their deservings of wrath and their 
power to harm, to God, who is just and judg- 
eth righteously. He himself would not take 
any revenge — ^he left the matter to his Father. 
Saint Paul teaches us to do the same with those 
who wrong us or sin against us : "Avenge not 
yourselves, beloved, but give place unto the 
wrath of God : for it is written. Vengeance be- 
longeth unto me ; I will recompense, saith the 
Lord." We are not the judge of any man. It 
is not our place to punish a man's sins against 
us. Commit that to God — he is just. 
The other thing meant is that Jesus commit- 
ted himself, his own life, to God, with all his 
hurts and injuries, and all the grievous wrongs 
[36] 



Co buffet anD lobe €)n 

which had been done to him. His Father was 
able to take all these cruelties and all his Son's 
untold sufferings, and not only prevent their 
harming him, but use them even for the glori- 
fying of his name. He was able to bring his 
Son through all the terrible experiences, and 
out from them, unharmed, with no trace of 
hurt upon him — and he did. Christ's enemies 
thought to quench utterly the light of his 
name in the black shame of the cross. But we 
know that no ray of brightness was put out 
— his name never shone so radiantly as it did 
after he had come again from death. 
It is thus that we should do with our wrongs, 
when others seek to injure us, when they treat 
us unkindly or unjustly— we should commit 
ourselves and our ill-treatment to our Father. 
He will look after the equities. It is not our 
duty to avenge ourselves. Then we may also 
commit our lives to the same divine love, no 
matter how cruel, how vindictive, how relent- 
less our enemies may be, nor how terrible the 
hurts they have done to us. He will preserve 
us from all the hurts of men's malignity. He 
[37] 



Ci^e lejsjson of iLobe 



will bring us safely through all danger and 
all assaults of evil. "Who is he that will 
harm you, if ye be zealous of that which is 
good?" 

But some one who has been suffering injury 
at the hands of others may say : "This terrible 
wrong against me has broken up my life, 
blighted my beautiful hopes, ruined all my 
promise of happiness." Yes; but God can 
build beauty yet for you out of these broken 
things. Keep your heart sweet with love, and 
your soul unstained by sin, and then trust your 
life to your Father. He will bring blessing 
and good out of all that seems such a pitiful 
ruin to-day. Could there ever again be such 
a wreck of all that was beautiful in a life as 
there was that Good Friday evening, when a 
few friends took down the body of Jesus from 
the cross and laid it away in the grave ? But 
we know what came out of that ruin. It will 
be the same with every one who, in time of hu- 
man betrayal or wrong, commits all with con- 
fidence to God. 

The same lesson applies to all suffering, as 
[38] 



Co buffet: anD JLobe €>n 

well as to the enduring of wrong from others. 
Some people suppose that sorrow always does 
good, blesses the life, enriches the character. 
But, in fact, it ofttimes hurts a life irrepara- 
bly. If we do not submit ourselves to God in 
our grief, if we resist and rebel, if we chafe 
and repine, and go on grieving inconsolably, 
our sorrow hurts our lives. It mars the beauty. 
It hushes the song. It dims the eye. It robs 
the heart of its love. If, however, we rever- 
ently accept our sorrow as a messenger from 
God, sent on a mission of love, bearing gifts 
and blessings from heaven for us, then we shall 
get good and not evil from our pain and loss. 
We have only to keep our hearts sweet, trust- 
ful, songful, without bitterness, without fear, 
and then leave with God all the outcome of the 
suffering. 

There is a story of an Indian child who one 
day came in from the wheat-field with a hurt 
bird in her hand. Running to the old chief, 
she said: "See! This is my bird. I found it 
in the wheat. It is hurt." The old man 
looked at the wounded bird and replied slowly : 
[39] 



Cl^e tmon of ilolje 



"No, it is not your bird, my child — it is God's 
bird. Take it back and lay it down where 
you found it. If you keep it, it will die. If 
you give it back into God's hands, he will heal 
its hurt and it will live." 

What the old Indian said of hurt birds is 
true of hearts hurt by sorrow. No human 
hand can heal them — the only safe thing to do 
in time of grief is to put our lives into God's 
hands, to commit them to him. His hands are 
gentle and skilful. They will not break a 
bruised reed nor quench the smoking flax. 
We need never be afraid of suffering. 
"Hereunto were ye called." There must be a 
reason for this in God's thought of us. We 
know, at least, that we never can reach the 
best things in life but by the paths of pain. 
All the richest blessings of grace lie beyond 
lines of sufi*ering which we must pass to get 
them. Even of Jesus it is said, that he was 
made perfect through suffering. There were 
attainments which even he could reach in no 
other way. All that is worthiest and most 
Christlike in good men bears the marks of pain 
[40] 



Co puffer and Lolje flDn 

upon it. We must pay the price if we would 
get the blessing. 

Then we must suffer ofttimes also for the 
sake of others. Christ suffered for all men in 
a way in which no other one ever can suffer. 
The influence of his unspeakable sorrow is re- 
newing and refining the whole race. Sorrow 
in any life softens other hearts. If there is 
crape on a door on any street the whole neigh- 
borhood feels its softening, quieting influence. 
Every one who passes the house comes under 
the mystic spell. Even the children at their 
play are impressed. We are all woven togeth- 
er into one mystic web of humanity, so that 
no man can live to himself. We must be will- 
ing to suffer that others may receive blessing 
from our pain. We never can become largely 
useful without suffering. We cannot get 
the power of sympathy which alone will fit us 
for being helpful to others in the best ways, 
save in the school of pain. We never can do 
anything worth while for humanity without 
first learning in suffering the lessons we will 
teach in song and hope. 
[41] 



m^t f urt of iflattert 



[43] 



" We love ihem^ and they know it ; if we falter 
With fingers numh^ 
Among the unused strings of lovers expression^ 

The notes are dumb ; 
We shrink within ourselves in voiceless sorrow.^ 

Leaving the words unsaid, 
And^ side by side with those we love the dearest^ 
In silence on we tread. 

'* Thu^ on we tread ^ and thus each heart in silence 
Its fate fulfils^ 
Waiting and hoping for the heavenly music 

Beyond the distant hills. 
The only difference of the love in heaven 

From love on earth below^ 
Is — here we love and know not how to tell it. 
And there we all shall know.*' 



[44] 



CHAPTER FOURTH 



Ci^e i^utt of flattery 




N English writer has some 
good words about flattery. 
They are suggested by a 
character in a recent story. 
It is that of an old woman 
who was clever but very 
disagreeable. One of her friends said to her 
that she ought to be more gracious and to 
give amiability a trial in her life. She was 
conscience stricken and confused as she 
thought of herself. "I'm a beast of an old 
woman," she said. "I can be agreeable if I 
choose; nobody more so." "Then why not 
choose to be so?" it was suggested. So she 
tried the experiment and was greatly encour- 
aged. Her amiability gave pleasure to her 
friends and she kept it up. 
But she was not always wise in her new role 
of amiability. For instance, she fell into the 
[45] 



Ci^e tmon of JLoije 



habit of flattery, thinking that in this way 
she could please people. On every occasion 
she practised this new art with assiduity. The 
result was not always felicitous, however. Too 
often she would so overdo her praise of peo- 
ple that its insincerity became apparent. Even 
the vainest persons were made aware, by the 
extravagance of her words, that she was only 
playing with them, and the effect was not to 
please but to offend. She would break out in 
enthusiasm over a friend's bonnet or dress. 
She would go into paroxysms of mirth over 
the retelling by another friend of some old 
story or of some threadbare bit of humor. 
She would tell some old, withered woman how 
fresh and young she looked — like a young 
girl in her teens. So the good woman's exces- 
sive efforts at amiability had the effect of sar- 
casm upon those she supposed she was pleas- 
ing. 

There are many people who fall into the 
same mistake. It is a quite common opinion 
that almost every one is susceptible to the in- 
fluence of flattery. There are different ways 
[46] 



Cl^e ^mt of flattery 

of flattering. There are some who are so ex- 
travagant in their expressions that none but 
the very vain and silly take their words se- 
riously and are pleased by what they say. 
They flatter every one, on every occasion. 
They go into ecstasy over everything you do or 
say. They lose no opportunity in your pres- 
ence of saying comphmentary things about 
you. But there is no discrimination in their 
eff^usive talk, which is as fluent over most triv- 
ial things as over the most important. Be- 
sides, it lacks the note of sincerity. They only 
proclaim the shallowness of their own hearts 
and their want of sense in supposing that they 
can deceive people into believing that they 
mean what they say. 

There are others who flatter and yet do it 
in a much wiser, more delicate, and less eff^u- 
sive and objectionable way. They watch for 
opportunities to pay compliments and they do 
say things which will please those to whom 
they are speaking. They exaggerate the good 
qualities which they commend or the worthy 
acts which they praise. They repeat the 
[47] 



Cl^e Htmon of toU 



kind things they have heard said about their 
friends. 

Their motive in all this is to get the good 
opinion of those they laud. But, really, in 
just so far as it is insincere, such compliment- 
ing is unwise in friendship. Even those who 
are in a way pleased by such praise for the 
moment are in the end oiBFended by it. There 
is an instinct in every man who is not hope- 
lessly self -conceited which tells him when the 
words of commendation he hears are sincerely 
spoken and when they are only empty words. 
In every phase and form, flattery is despica- 
ble. On the whole^ too, it fails to deceive, and, 
therefore, fails to please. It is resented by 
every worthy person and weakens rather than 
strengthens friendship. 

The moment one who claims to be our 
friend utters anything which we know to be 
an exaggeration of his interest in us, his re- 
gard for us, or his opinion of us or of some- 
thing we have done, he has hurt himself with 
us. Friendship needs no flattery in its profes- 
sions or in its intercourse. It must be thor- 
[48] 



Ci^e i^utt of flattery 

oughly sincere in all its expressions. Insincer- 
ity in any form or in any smallest measure is 
a kind of disloyalty against which every true 
heart instinctively revolts. 
Yet there are people who have become so 
used to adulation that they cannot be happy 
without it. They expect everyone to say com- 
plimentary things to them and of them. 
They have lived so long and so entirely in an 
atmosphere of approbation that any speech 
which lacks this quality seems tame and cold 
to them. 

This is a danger to which women are more 
exposed than men. Everybody tries to say 
complimentary things to women. Men are 
more likely to hear the bare truth about them- 
selves even though ofttimes it be disagreeable. 
In school, and on the playground, boys are in 
the habit of speaking out bluntly and frankly 
to each other, not asking or thinking whether 
the words will give pleasure or pain. It is 
very rarely that a boy hears flattery, unless 
it be from his gentle mother, who sees every- 
thing in him from love's point of view. In 
[49] 



Cl^e tmon of loije 

college and university life young men are not 
encouraged to think more highly of themselves 
than the facts of their character and conduct 
warrant them to think. Their faults are oft- 
times mercilessly exposed. Men get some of 
their best lessons, too, from the brusqueness 
of their fellows. At the time they do not 
like it — may even think it almost brutal — 
but it helps to make men of them. When col- 
lege students win compliments and praise 
from their fellows, it must be for something 
worthy, almost heroic. They are not in 
great danger of being spoiled by flattery. 
But with women it is altogether different. 
Even as little girls they are petted and praised 
by everyone. They grow up in a hot-house 
atmosphere of appreciation. Too often they 
are trained to expect complimenting on all oc- 
casions, wherever they go, whatever they do. 
They are dressed by their mothers with a view 
to admiration, and it is regarded as the proper 
thing for everybody who sees them to go into 
a measure of rapture over their handsome 
appearance. Their early attainments and 
[50] 



Cl^e l^utt of flattttv 

achievements are always praised, sometimes in 
exaggerated fashion. As they grow older it 
is the same. In girls' colleges the freshmen 
are "hazed" with flowers and suppers. Men 
of all ages vie with each other in showing gal- 
lantry to women. Any exhibition of rudeness 
to them is regarded as unpardonable. They 
are always listening to compliments which 
sometimes verge on flattery. 
The wonder is that so many women, brought 
up in such an atmosphere, escape hurt in their 
life and character, and maintain the sweetness, 
the simplicity, the humility, the thoughtful- 
ness, and the gentleness, which are among the 
highest qualities in ideal womanliness. That 
more are not spoiled by the continual adulation 
which they receive and are taught to expect 
is another proof of the innate nobleness of 
woman's nature. It must be admitted that the 
influence of such a training upon the charac- 
ter and disposition is not strengthening, does 
not tend to develop the best things in the life. 
We all need opposition and antagonism to 
make us strong and to bring out the graces 
[51] 



Ci^e tt^^on of loije 



and virtues in us. The girls who do not live 
always in an atmosphere of flattery, but who 
are subject to more or less criticism find their 
compensation in the greater self-reliance wliich 
they acquire. 

There is a genuine appreciation of others 
and of what they say and do which is not only 
proper, but is a bounden duty. It is right to 
express our admiration for what pleases us in 
others. In this case, the motive is not to re- 
ceive compliments in return, nor to gain favor 
and influence, but to give cheer and encour- 
agement. Saint Paul tells us that we should 
please our neighbor for his good to edification. 
A child is striving earnestly to master some 
art or science, but he is disheartened, for he 
is not succeeding. Nothing will do him so 
much good as a word of appreciation and con- 
fidence, a word of encouragement, which will 
spur him to do his best. If he hears only 
fault-finding and criticism, he may lose heart 
altogether and give up. But when he learns 
that some one believes in him and expects him 
to succeed, he receives new inspiration which 
[52] 



Ci^e f utt of flattett 

makes him stronger to go on with his striving. 
There is a great lack of just this proper 
and wholesome spirit of appreciation and gen- 
uine encouragement. Many times life is made 
a great deal harder for people by the want 
of kind words. Thousands live faithfully and 
work hard at their commonplace tasks, day 
after day, year after year, and yet never 
hear a single sentence which tells them of 
any human interest in them or in their 
work. 

This is so in many homes where it might be 
supposed that the law of love is most faith- 
fully observed. Scarcely ever is a heartening 
word spoken by one to another. If all in the 
household would form the habit of giving an 
expression to the loving appreciation which is 
in their hearts, it would soon transform the 
home life. 

** ^Tis a little thing to say, ' You are kind ; 
I love you, my dear, ' each night ; 
But it sends a thrill through the hearty I find — 
For love is tender, as love is blind — 
As we climb life's rugged height, 
[53] 



Ci^e lejcijEion of lote 



** We starve each other for love's caress; 
We take, hut we do not give ; 
It seems so easy some soul to hless, 
But we dole the love grudgingly, less and less. 
Till His hitter and hard to live.^^ 

TJie same lack prevails, too, everywhere. 
Many men sink under their burdens or faint 
in their battles, because no one ever thinks to 
express the kindly interest and appreciation 
which are in his heart. One of the best ser- 
vices anyone can render to his fellows is 
always to be an encourager. How rarely do 
we say the hearty word of cheer which would 
warm the blood and make it tingle ! 
We should miss no opportunity to say kind- 
ly and encouraging things to all about us. 
Life is hard enough for many people at the 
best, and we should be glad to make it easier 
when we may, and we can make it easier for 
all about us by showing genuine appreciation. 
What really helps people and makes them 
braver and stronger is not flattery, but kind- 
ness, which is bread of life to hungry hearts. 
[54] 



Cl^e i^utt of flattery 

** Why do we wait till ears are deaf 
Before we speak our liindly tvordy 
And only utter loving praise 

When not a whisper can he heard f 

*' Why do tee wait till hands are laid 
Close-folded^ pulseless^ ere we place 
Within them roses sweet and rare. 
And lilies in their flawless grace f 

** Why do zee icait till eyes are sealed 

To light and love in death's deep trance — 
Dear wistful eyes — before we hend 
Above tJiem with impassioned glance f 

" Why do we wait till hearts are still 
To tell them all the love in ours, 
And give them such late mead of praise, 
And lay above tJiem fragrant flowers f " 



[55] 



cc 



00V Htfe" 



[57] 



^^ Being perplexed^ I say, 
Lord^ make it right I 

Night is as day to thee^ 
Darkness as light, 

I am afraid to touch things 

That involve so much^ 

My trembling hand may shake. 

My skilful hand may break ; 

Thine can make no mistake" 



[58] 



CHAPTER FIFTH 




NE of the finest passages in 
Saint Paul's letters is his 
triumphant expression of 
confidence that nothing can 
separate the Christian from 
the love of God. One of 
the items the writer names is life — "neither 
death nor life." We are not surprised that 
he should mention death, for death carries us 
out from "our bourne of time and place," into 
a mystery which no ^ye can penetrate. We 
are grateful therefore for the assurance that 
death will not separate us from the love of 
God. 

*^^Tis but to pierce the mist — and then 
How beautiful to be with God!** 

There is a deep significance, however, in the 

fact that life itself is named among the perils 

to which we are exposed, and in the assurance 

[59] 



m^t tmon of loije 



that it cannot separate us from God's love. 
Living is fraught with far more danger than 
dying. Think what life is. It is not merely 
getting through this world in the best way 
we can. We are not here to make a living, but 
to make a life, to grow, to do God's will, to 
leave at least one spot of the world a little 
brighter and better. Think of the way we be- 
gin life — as babies, with great possibilities, but 
all to be developed. Think how much depends 
upon our strength, and yet how weak we are ; 
upon our wisdom, and how ignorant we are. 
Think of the evil there is in the world, and 
how easy it is for us to drift away on its dark 
tides. Think of the temptations we must meet 
continually, and how unequal we are to the 
terrific struggle with them. Think of the 
work we have to do, the burdens we must carry, 
the responsibilities that are ours. Think of 
the mistakes we may make and of what 
disastrous consequences may result from 
them. 

It is not easy to live. Every step of the 

passage from birth to death is through perils 

[60] 



(^ 



ilJJor Life 



and antagonisms. Yet we have the assurance 
that even life, with all it holds of danger and 
conflict, cannot separate us from the love of 
God ; that in all these things we may be more 
than conquerors through him that loved us. 
Serious then as life is, we need not dread to 
live. No enemy can really harm us. No load 
can crush us. No power can wrench us away 
from the keeping of God. 
Indeed, the divine love changes all the hard 
things into blessings. There is a way of liv- 
ing in this world by which the evil is trans- 
muted into good. Before the Master went 
away he prayed for the keeping of his disci- 
ples in the perils they must meet, committing 
them to the Father's care. He did not ask that 
they should be taken from the world. It 
might have seemed greater kindness to them if 
he had done this. But they had a work to 
do in the world and there was also a work to be 
done in them. When we find life almost hard- 
er than we can bear, with struggle, opposition, 
human enmity, or sore trial, it will help us to 
remember that our Master wants us and needs 
[61] 



Ci^e JLe^^on of JLot3e 



us just where we are, or he would not leave us 
there. 

But while Jesus did not ask that his disciples 
should be taken from the world, he did ask 
that they might be kept from its evil. The 
true prayer in time of great trial, care or sor- 
row, is, not that we shall be delivered from the 
experiences, but that we may pass through 
them unharmed. It is right for us to pray to 
be kept from evil, but there is only one evil. 
It is not sickness, it is not poverty, it is not 
human wrong and cruelty, it is not earthly 
loss— the only evil is sin. Nothing else can 
harm us. One rebellious thought will hurt us 
more than all the martyrs' fires we could suf- 
fer, or the longest and most dreadful agonies 
of pain we could endure. 
There is another word of Saint Paul's which 
comes in here : "We know that to them that 
love God all things work together for good." 
Instead of being something to dread, there- 
fore, because of its dangers and antagonisms, 
its burdens and sorrows, life is a school of good. 
Temptations are meant by the Evil One to de- 
[62] 



^^ 



ll^ot: life 



stroy us, but when we resist and overcome 
them, they become helpers of our growth and 
progress, leaving us stronger and wiser. Sor- 
rows which seem only to wound and scar, pu- 
rify and enrich our characters. The best lives 
are those that have suffered the most and 
struggled the most. The men and women who 
reach the finest things in character and the 
largest usefulness are not those who have had 
only ease and a comfortable time, but those 
who have learned in struggle how to be strong 
and in suffering how to be sympathetic and 
gentle. 

In the hardest experiences of life we are sure 
always of God's lev^. An Arctic explorer 
was asked whether during the long months of 
slow starvation which he and his companions 
had endured, they suffered greatly from the 
pangs of hunger. He replied that these pangs 
were forgotten in the feeling that their friends 
at home had forgotten them and were not com- 
ing to rescue them. There is no suffering so 
bitter as the sense of abandonment, the thought 
that nobody cares. But however painful and 
[63] 



m^t iLejs^on of Loije 



hard our condition may be, however men may 
wrong us and injure us. Christian faith as- 
sures us that God loves us, that he has not for- 
gotten us, that he cares. 

Life is not a series of merely fortuitous hap- 
penings, unplanned, unpurposed. "Every 
man's life is a plan of God." A divine purpose 
runs through all the events and circumstances 
of our days. This purpose is not that we 
should do a certain amount of work in the 
world, but that we ourselves should be built up 
into strength and beauty of character. Work 
is not a curse, as is sometimes thoughtlessly 
said — it is a means of grace. The reason we 
have to work is not primarily because the 
world needs the work but because we need it. 
Men are not in business just to build so many 
houses a year, to sell so many bales of goods, 
to cultivate so many acres of land, to do the 
routine work of their calling successfully — 
they are set to these duties in order that in 
them they may grow into men — strong, true, 
gentle, worthy men. Women are not appoint- 
ed to certain tasks in household work, in social 
[64] 



(^ 



00V life " 



life, in teaching or business, merely to become 
good housekeepers, good business women, or 
good teachers, nurses, or physicians — the di- 
vine purpose in all their toil is that they may 
grow into noble womanhood. 
Sometimes men fail in their business ventures 
or in their professions. They give their best 
strength and their most strenuous efforts to 
some work, and it does not succeed. The work 
fails, but the men need not fail. It is a great 
thing to meet misfortune victoriously, coming 
out of it with life unhurt, with new strength 
and courage for another effort. A distin- 
guished jurist lost an important case in the 
courts. He showed no feeling of discourage- 
ment, however, and a friend asked him how 
he could take his disappointment so calmly. 
"When it is over," said the great lawyer, "I 
have no more to do with it. If I kept thinking 
of my defeats, I feel that I should go mad. 
But I will not brood over them. When one 
case is done, I drop it, whatever the result may 
be, and go on to the next." 
It is a fine thing to see a boy, when his com- 
[65] 



Ci^e lejsjson of toU 



petitor has won the game, reach out his hand 
to him in manly congratulation. He has lost 
the game, but he has won in nobility. The 
only real defeat is when a man shows an un- 
manly spirit and yields to depression after 
losing in business, or pouts and sulks and 
acts like a baby when he has failed to get 
the prize he wanted. 

It is one of the wonders of divine love that 
even our blemishes and sins God will take, when 
we truly repent of them and give them into his 
hands, and make them blessings to us in some 
way. A friend once showed Ruskin a costly 
handkerchief on which a blot of ink had been 
made. "Nothing can be done with that," the 
friend said, thinking the handkerchief worth- 
less and ruined now. Ruskin carried it away 
with him and after a time sent it back to his 
friend. In a most skilful and artistic way he 
had made a fine design in India ink, using the 
blot as its basis. Instead of being ruined, the 
handkerchief was made far more beautiful and 
valuable. 

So God takes the blots and flecks and stains 
[66] 



^( 



00V JLtfe" 



upon our lives, the disfiguring blemishes, when 
we commit them to him, and by his marvellous 
grace changes them into marks of beauty. 
David's grievous sin was not only forgiven, 
but was made a transforming power in his life. 
Peter's pitiful fall became a step upward 
through his Lord's forgiveness and gentle 
dealing. Peter never would have become the 
man he afterward became if he had not denied 
his Lord, and then repented and been restored. 
There ought to be great comfort for us in the 
truth, that in all our life God is making us. It 
is not easy to make a man or a woman into the 
beauty God wants to see. Some of us are 
harder to make, too, than others. Sometimes 
the cost is terrific. It took a great deal of se- 
vere discipline and schooling to make an apos- 
tle of Peter, but the price paid was not too 
much when the result was such a magnificent 
man. 

Sometimes we think God deals severely with 
us. We have many defeats and disappoint- 
ments. We have sorrows and losses. We stum- 
ble and fall again and again. Why is it.? we 
[67] 



Cl^e tmon of toU 



ask. Here is the answer : God is making us. 
He wants us to grow into strength and beauty. 
He wants us to do service among men which 
shall be a blessing to them. He wants to have 
us get to heaven at last. It costs a great deal, 
but is any price of pain, anguish, or loss too 
great to pay for such an outcome? William 
Canton writes of the cost of making one man : 

A man lived fifty years— joy dashed with tears ; 

Loved, toiled; had wife and child, and lost 
them; died; 
And left of all his long life's work one little song. 

That lasted — naught beside, 

Idke the Monk Felixes bird, that song was heard ; 
Doubt prayed, faith soared, death smiled itself 
to sleep ; 
That song saved souls. You say the man paid 
stiffly % Nay, 
God paid — and thought it cheap. 

There is one thing always to be remembered. 
Saint Paul tells us that we become more than 
conquerors in all life's trials, dangers, strug- 
gles, temptations, and sorrows, only "through 
him that loved us." Without Christ we can 
[68] 



(( 



i^ot life" 



but be defeated. There is only one secret that 
can turn evil into good, pain into blessing — 
that is the love of Christ. There is only one 
Hand that can take the blotted life and trans- 
form it into beauty. "This is the victory that 
overcometh the world, even our faith." 
But there is a way we can miss all this blessing. 
God's love changes not ; nothing can separate 
us from it. Yet unbelief can rob us of all the 
blessing of that love. We can shut it out of 
our hearts if we will. Then everything in life 
will harm instead of help us. The one secret 
of being in the world and not of the world, of 
passing through life and not being hurt by 
life's evil, of having all things work together 
for good to us — the one and only secret — is to 
have the love of God in our hearts. No one 
can be lost whose heart keeps in it always this 
blessed love. 



[69] 



i^aljtnjj tlje jEinti oe €W^t 



[71] 



*' Have ye stood by the sad and weary ^ 
To smooth the pillow of deaths 
To comfort the sorrow-stricken^ 
And strengthen the feeble faith ? 
And have ye felt ^ when the glory 
Has streamed through the open door 
And flitted across the shadows. 
That there I had been before ? 

** Have ye wept with the broken-hearted 
In their agony of woe f 
Ye might hear me whispering beside yoUf 
* ' Tis the pathway I often go I ' 
My brethren^ Tny friends^ Tny disciples^ 
Can you dare to follow me? 
Then, wherever the Master dwelleth 
There shall the servant be," 



[72] 



CHAPTER SIXTH 



l$aUn^ ti^t jmtnD of Ci^ttjsit 




HE ideal Christian life is 
one in which the mind that 
was in Christ Jesus rules. 
But what is the mind that 
was in Christ? Is there 
any word that describes it? 
What was the very heart of Christ's mission? 
What one day was there in all his life when he 
showed forth most clearly the central glory of 
his character? Was there any one act in all 
the multitude of his wonderful works in which 
the radiant blessedness of his life was revealed 
in greater fulness than in any other ? 
If you were asked to name the one day in the 
life of our Lord when he showed most of the 
splendor of his person, which day of all would 
you choose ? Would it be the time of his trans- 
figuration, when the brightness of his deity 
shone out through the robes of flesh that he 
wore? Would it be the day of his miracle of 
[73] 



Ci^e lejsjson of toU 



feeding the five thousand, or the day when he 
raised Lazarus? Or would you take some 
scene when he stood amid throngs of lame, 
sick, blind, and healed them all? Or would 
you say that the brightest moment of his 
earthly life was when he was riding into the 
city with great processions of joyous people 
crying, "Hosanna"? 

None of these hours of human splendor was 
the hour of the fullest revealing of the heart 
of Christ. None of those radiant days was 
the day when most of his true glory was mani- 
fested. None of these achievements of power 
was the greatest thing Jesus ever did. The 
brightest day in all his earthly career was the 
day when he hung upon his cross. The reveal- 
ing of his glory that was divinest was when 
men thought that he had sunk away in the 
deepest shame. The act that was the sublimest 
of all his achievements was the giving of him- 
self in death for men. We could spare all the 
miracles out of the gospel story and all the nar- 
rative of gentle and beautiful things, if the 
cross were left. The cross is the fullest repre- 
[74] 



sentation of the glory of Christ. If we ask, 
then, where, on what day, in what one act, the 
completest revealing of Christ can be seen, the 
answer is — on Good Friday, when he died be- 
tween two thieves. 

"Let this mind be in you, which was also in 
Christ Jesus." The very hall-mark of Christ- 
likeness is the stamp of the cross. We say we 
want to be like Christ. We say it in our pray- 
ers, we sing it in our hymns, we put it into our 
consecration services. But what do we mean 
by being like Christ? Are we not in danger of 
getting into our vision of it merely some sur- 
face gleams of divinity, an easy kind of life, a 
gentle piety, a dainty charity, a fashionable 
holiness, a pleasing service? When two dis- 
ciples asked for the highest places, the Master 
spoke to them in serious words of his baptism 
and his cup, asking them if they were able to 
drink of the cup and be baptized with the bap- 
tism. When we say we want to be like Christ, 
he points us to his cross and says : "That is 
what it is to be like me ; are you able?" 
The cross shows us a vision of what our life 
[75] 



Cl^e tmon of JLolje 

must be if we are following Christ. The cross 
stamps itself on every true Christian life. 
Some people wear crosses as ornaments. If 
we are Christians like Jesus, we will wear the 
cross in our heart. 

Suppose we vary the question, and ask what 
act in our own life we look back upon with the 
greatest satisfaction, what day we think of as 
the brightest and divinest of all our days. 
What achievement of yours do you consider 
the highest in all your life ? Do you think of 
a day when you made some signal triumph in 
school, or won some unusual success in busi- 
ness, or carried off the honors in some contest, 
or did some fine piece of work which men 
praised.^ We are apt to think the red-letter 
days in our life are the days when we gath- 
ered honor for ourselves. 
But in the light of the lesson we are now learn- 
ing, are these the best days in our lives ? Some 
one has said, "The greatest thing a man can 
do for his heavenly Father is to be kind to 
some of the Father's other children." The 
things that are really the brightest in your 
[T6] 



past life are not the honors you won for your- 
self, the brilliant successes you achieved, nor 
the prosperities which added to your impor- 
tance among men, but the deeds of love which 
your hand wrought in Christ's name for some 
of his little ones. The one brightest day in 
all your past life was the day you did your 
purest, most unselfish, most self-denying act 
for your Master, in serving one of his. It is 
only when we have some measure of Christ's 
self-renunciation that we have touched the 
truest and Christliest things in life. 
There is a story of a potter in China who re- 
ceived from the emperor a command to make 
a rare set of porcelain ware for the royal table. 
With greatest pains he began his work, de- 
siring to make it the finest achievement of his 
life. Again and again, however, when the 
pieces were put into the furnace, they were 
marred. At length another set was ready for 
burning, and the potter hoped that this one 
would be successful. But as he watched it in 
the furnace he saw that this, too, would be a 
failure. In despair he threw himself into the 
[77] 



Ci^e Wjson of JLoiie 



fire and his body was consumed. But when 
the pieces were taken out they were found to 
be so wondrously beautiful that nothing like 
them had ever before been seen. Not until 
the potter sacrificed his own life in the doing 
of it was his work successful. 
The old heathen legend has its lesson for 
Christian life. Our work never reaches the 
highest beauty, is never fit for our King, until 
love's self-sacrifice is wrought into it. Things 
we do for ourselves, to win honor for our own 
name, to make profit for our own enrichment, 
are never the things that are most beautiful 
in God's sight. The greatest things we do are 
those that are wrought in utter self-f orgetf ul- 
ness for Christ's glory. 

There will be strange reversals in the day of 
final revealing, when all things shall appear as 
they are. Many of earth's trumpeted deeds 
will shrivel into nothingness. Many of earth's 
proud names, bedecked with brilliant honors 
and garlanded with human praises, will fade 
away into insignificance, because there is no 
love in the things which won them their distinc- 
[78] 



i^atjing tl^e jminD of €W^t 

tion. And up out of the shadows of obscurity 
where they were overlooked by men, and left 
unhonored and unrecorded, thousands of lowly 
deeds will rise into immortal beauty and honor, 
because love inspired them. Up, too, out of 
the throngs of earth's unnamed will rise a mul- 
titude of low^ly ones to receive reward, to shine 
like the stars, because they lived out the lesson 
of the cross. 

There are some who complain bitterly because 
to all their loving they get such small requital. 
Sometimes it is not only unrequital — the love 
is hurt, smitten in the face, wounded, scorned. 
In many a home there is one who loves and 
lives for the others and yet is unloved. In all 
departments of life there are those who must 
think and plan and labor and endure, while the 
honor of all they do gathers about some other 
brow. 

It ought to be a sweet comfort to all such to 
know that precisely this is the highest, the di- 
vinest duty of love. These are the lives that 
are likest Christ's. He loved and was rejected 
and shut out of people's homes and hearts, per- 
[ 79 ] 



Ci^e tt^^on of toU 



secuted, wronged, at last nailed upon a cross. 
Yet he loved on; the fountain in his heart 
flowed as full as ever. "Let this mind be in 
you, which was also in Christ Jesus." 
It would be well if we could get into our hearts 
a vision of the central meaning of the cross. 
It was not merely a man giving himself for 
the helping of his fellow-men — it was the Son 
of God giving himself, pouring out his own 
blood to redeem lost men. One of the most 
wonderful of the ancient litanies contains 
among others these petitions: "By the cold 
crib in which thou flidst lie, have mercy upon 
us. By thy flight into Egypt and all the pains 
thou didst suff*er there ; by the thirst, hunger, 
cold, and heat in this vale of thy misery; by 
the inward and great heaviness which thou 
hadst when praying in the garden ; by the spit- 
ting on thee and the scourging ; by thy purple 
garments and thy crown of thorns; by the 
nailing of thy right hand to the cross and the 
shedding of thy most precious blood; by the 
nailing of thy left hand and that most holy 
wound — purge, enlighten, and reconcile us to 
[80] 



i^aijing tl^e 0iim of Cl^ti^t 

God. By tlie lifting up of thy most holy 
body on the cross; by the bitterness of thy 
death and its intolerable pains; by thy glo- 
rious resurrection ; by thy wonderful and glo- 
rious ascension, have mercy upon us. For the 
glory, and the divine majesty and virtue of 
thy holy name, save us, and govern us now and 
ever." 

If such a vision of the loving, suffering, re- 
deeming Christ as these flaming sentences 
bring before us but filled our hearts, we would 
then know something of what the cross means. 
Its image would burn itself upon our very 
souls. It is into fellowship with all this in 
Christ that we are called in the words, "Let 
this mind be in you, which was also in Christ 
Jesus." He gave his life to save the world ; he 
calls us to give our lives to save the world. It 
is not enough to tell in flaming words of the 
love of Christ to men ; we must be in flaming 
lives the love of Christ to men. It is not 
enough to sit in our places of worship and 
sing praises to God for our own salvation ; we 
must hasten out to seek and to save the lost. 
[81] 



%\)t ^econD 0iilt 



[83] 



C5?, my drowsing eyes ! 

Up^ my sinking heart ! 
Up^ to Jesus Christ arise ! 

Claim your part 
In all raptures of the shies ! 

Yet a little while^ 

Yet a little way^ 
Saints shall reap and rest and smile 

All the day : 
Up ! lefs trudge another mile ! 

— Christina Georgina Rossetti. 



[84] 



CHAPTER SEVENTH 

Cl^e Second puit 




NE of our Lord's remarka- 
ble exhortations is, "Who- 
soever shall compel thee to 
go one mile, go with him 
two." That is, do more 
than you are expected to 
do, be better than you are expected to be, go 
farther in love and service and self-denial than 
you are required to go. The immediate ref- 
erence is to the old hard days when most men 
had to serve despotic masters and often do 
compulsory service. For example, men would 
be required to go with invading soldiers to 
guide them through the country and carry 
their burdens. "If such forced service is de- 
manded of you," said Jesus, "do not resist; 
go cheerfully; go even farther than you are 
compelled to go." 

Of course, this is only an illustration of a 

principle. The Christian is to accept hardness 

[85] 



Cl^e tmon of toU 



patiently. He is not to watch the clock lest he 
may work a few minutes over time. He is not 
to keep account of all the things he does for 
others, lest he may do more than he is re- 
quired to do. Rather, when he is serving, he 
is to do more than strict duty demands. He 
is to go two miles instead of one. 
The religion of his day was not satisfactory 
to our Master. So he said to his disciples, 
"Except your righteousness exceed the right- 
eousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye can- 
not enter into the kingdom of heaven." We 
are Christ's true followers, not when we do 
no murder — ^that is going one mile — but when 
we keep our hearts free from all bitterness, all 
unkind feelings, all desire for revenge — that 
is going the second mile. The religion of the 
Pharisees said they must love their friends 
but hate their enemies, giving as they had re- 
ceived — going only one short mile. But the 
friends of Jesus must go the second mile and 
love their enemies and pray for those who per- 
secute them. "What do ye more than others ?" 
is the question which tests Christian life. Any- 
[86] 



Ci^e Second jEile 



body can love those who love him and be kind 
to those who are kind to him. You must do 
more — you must go two miles. 
The principle applies to everything in life. A 
good many people want to go only one mile 
in consecration, in praying, in loving others, 
in doing God's will. But mere one-mile fol- 
lowing of Christ is pitifully inadequate. 
What kind of a friend do you like — one who 
will go just the easy one mile with you, while 
the path is flowery, and the air full of sweet 
odors, and then drop off when the road gets 
steep and rough, and the winter winds begin 
to blow ? Or do you like the friend who stays 
by you when it costs to be your friend, when 
he has to carry burdens for you, has almost to 
carry you, sometimes ? Do you like best the 
friend who goes only one short, easy mile with 
you and then drops off, or the friend who goes 
the second mile ? Was Orpah or Ruth the bet- 
ter friend to Naomi .? 

What kind of friends do you suppose Jesus 

Christ likes to have — those who go with him a 

little way while it is easy, and then drop out 

[87] 



Ci^e leji^on of toU 

when the pinch comes, or those who go with 
him through pain, tears, and cost? those who 
go one mile or those who go two ? Some Chris- 
tian people never have learned the deep joy 
of the Christian life because they never have 
gone beneath the surface in loving Christ and 
in consecration to him. Our religion is too 
easy-going. We think we are fulfilling our 
duty if we attend church once a Sunday when 
the weather is clear, if we give a few cents a 
week to God's cause, if we kneel morning and 
evening and say a little prayer. Yet these are 
only one-mile excursions in religion, and the 
blessing does not lie at the end of the little con- 
ventional mile — it lies farther on, at the end 
of the second 'mile. 

Everything about Christian life is infinite. It 
has no marked boundary lines beyond which 
it may not reach, no ne plus ultra, beyond 
which its conquests may not extend. There 
is no limit to the measure of Christian joy and 
peace. We should never be satisfied with any 
attainments we have already reached. What- 
ever we have achieved to-day we should set our 
[88] 



Ci^e ^econn jEile 



standard higher for to-morrow. An artist 
when asked which he considered his best pict- 
ure, would answer: "My next." 

* * No man can say at night — 
His goal is reached ; the hunger for the light 
Moves with the star ; our thirst will not depart 
However we drink. 'Tis what before us goes 
Keeps us aweary, will not let us lay 
Our heads in dreamland, though the enchanted 

X>alm 
Rise from our desert, though the fountain grow 
Up in our path, with slumhefs flowing halm ; 
The soul is o'er the horizon far away^ 

We should always look well to that quality of 
Christian life which our Lord himself said is 
the unfailing hall-mark of discipleship. "By 
this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, 
if ye have love one to another." The measure 
of this love is given in the same paragraph — 
"even as I have loved you, that ye also love one 
another." "As I have loved you" — that is 
the second mile in loving others. The first mile 
is loving pleasant, agreeable people, in a con- 
ventional way, so long as they love you, flatter 
[89] 



Cl^e iLej2j0on of lotie 



you, and pamper your vanity. The second- 
mile Christian loves people he does not like — 
loves the unloveliest, and does good without 
measure, hoping for nothing again. One-mile 
loving asks, "How often must I forgive my 
fellow-Christian when he has been unkind 
to me.'^ Seven times?" Second-mile loving 
never asks any such question. It is patient, 
forbearing, forgiving seventy times seven, even 
unto the uttermost. It keeps no account of 
how much or how often. 

Think what patience Jesus had with his disci- 
ples, and then read, "As I have loved you." 
Think how he bore with their faults and fail- 
ings, with their dulness and slowness, with 
their unbelief and unfaithfulness, with their 
denials and betrayals. "As I have loved you, 
that ye also love one another." How it shames 
our touchiness, our quick firing up when a 
brother seems to fail a little in courtesy, or 
speaks a little quickly ! Was that the way 
Jesus loved his friends.? Is that the way he 
loves us now.? If it were, we never could 
be saved^ we never could learn the lesson of 
[90] 



Cl^e Second jEtle 



loving ; and if we never learn to love as Jesus 
loves, we cannot enter heaven, for heaven is 
only for those who have learned to love. Shall 
we not set as our standard this love that goes 
the second mile? 

We should go a second mile also in the submit- 
ting of our lives to the will and the Spirit of 
God. We say we take Jesus Christ as our Lord 
and Master. We do not begin to be Christians 
until we do. First, he is our Saviour. Then 
comes surrender. "Follow me" is his word. 
Martin Luther's seal was a rose ; in the rose a 
heart ; in the heart a cross. The rose suggest- 
ed fragrance and beauty. A Christian's life 
should be winning. It should be sweet, pour- 
ing forth the perfume of love. The heart in 
the rose told that all true life is love-inspired. 
Then at the centre of all was the cross. That 
is the inspiration of it all. Until we have the 
cross of Christ in us, in our very heart, we 
can have neither fragrance nor beauty. We 
should never forget that only the self-sacri- 
ficing love of Christ in our hearts can trans- 
form our lives. And we can have Christ in us 
[91] 



Ci^e HejS^on of JLotie 



only by yielding our lives to him. To resist 
the Spirit of Christ is to cut ourselves off from 
blessing. 

" Though Christ a thousand times in Bethlehem 

he horn, 
If he's not horn in thee, thy soul is all forlorn. 
Go(fs Spirit falls on me as dewdrops on a rose, 
If I hut, like a rose, my heart to him disclose. 
In all eternity no tone can he so sweet 
As when marCs heart with God^s in unison doth 

heat. 
Whatever thou lovest, man, that too hecome thou 

must — 
God, if thou lovest Bod ; dust, if thou lovest dust " 



[92] 



Losing ^elf in €W^t 



[93] 



the hitter shame and sorrow 

That a time could ever ic, 
When I let the Saviour^ s pity 
Plead in vain^ and proudly answered^ 

'' All of self ^ and none of thee V 

Yet he found me ; I beheld him 

Bleeding on the accursed tree ; 
Heard himpray^ '' Forgive them^ Father !^ 
And my wistful heart said faintly^ 

^* Some of self and some ofthee.^^ 

Day hy day his tender mercy ^ 

Healing^ helping^ full andfree^ 
Sweet and strong^ and^ ah ! so patient, 
Brought me lower ^ while 1 whispered^ 

'' Less of self and more of thee.'' 

Higher than the highest heavens^ 

Deeper than the deepest sea^ 
Lord^ thy love at last hath conquered ; 
Grant me now my soul's desire^ 

''None of self and all of thee, ^* 

—Theodore Monod. 



[94] 



CHAPTER EIGHTH 



iLojStng ^eW in Cl^ti^t 




HE Christian's first duty is 
to honor his Master. He 
must be willing to sink him- 
self out of sight in order 
that the name of Christ 
may be magnified. It is 
not always possible to honor Christ and yet 
to honor ourselves before men. Sometimes the 
wreath on our own brow must fade if we 
would keep the wrelith for Christ beautiful 
and green. Sometimes we must decrease that 
Christ may increase. Sometimes we must be 
willing to fall into the shadow, that the full 
light may be cast upon his face. Sometimes 
we must be ready to suffer loss that the cause 
of Christ may be advanced. But all this seem- 
ing decrease if we are true at heart to our 
Master, is only seeming. The honor on our 
brow is never so bright as when we have will- 
[95] 



Ci^e le^json of toU 



ingly stripped off the stars from ourselves to 
bind them on the brow of Jesus. 
It is easy to mar the beauty. We have all seen 
people chafing and envying when position and 
influence once theirs passed to others. There 
is no severer test of character than comes in 
such experiences as this. It is not easy when 
others achieve promotions that we had hoped 
to win, for us to keep our spirits gentle, gen- 
erous, and sweet.. It is not easy, even in school, 
to have another win the prize that we sought 
and hoped to take, and then not to feel envious 
of him, but to treat him with true aff^ection, 
joining his fellows in sincere honoring of him. 
It is not easy in the home, for a plain, unat- 
tractive child to see a bright, popular, brilliant 
sister idolized and petted, receiving universal 
praise, while she, the plain, homely one, is neg- 
lected and left without attention — it is not 
easy for the plain girl to see this and yet keep 
loyal affection in her heart and join cheerfully 
and proudly in the honoring of the favorite. 
It is always hard to decrease while another in- 
creases, especially if it be at our own cost. 
[96] 



losing ^elf (n Ci^ti^t 

Yet only as we learn to die to self, do we be- 
come like Christ. Unrenewed nature seeks all 
of self and none of Christ. Becoming a Chris- 
tian is the taking of Christ into the life in the 
place of self. Then all is changed. Life has a 
new centre, a new aim. Christ comes first. His 
plan for our lives is accepted instead of our 
own. It is no more what we would like to do, 
but "What does the Master want us to do.?" 
It is no longer the pressing of our own will, 
but "Thy will, not mine, be done." This is 
the story of all Christian life — the dying of 
self and the growing of Christ in the heart. 
So long as there remains any self-will, any in- 
submission, any spirit of disobedience, any un- 
conquered self, asserting its authority against 
the will of Christ, so long is our consecration 
incomplete. 

This lesson has its very practical bearing on 
all our common, every-day life. Naturally we 
want to have our own way. We like to carry 
out our own plans and ambitions. We are apt 
to feel, too, that we have failed in life when we 
cannot realize these hopes. This is the world's 
[97] 



Ci^e JLe00on of lol3e 



standard. The successful man is the one 
who is able to master all life's circumstances 
and make them serve him in his career. He is 
the man who "increases" until he fills a large 
place among men. The world has little praise 
or admiration for the man who "decreases" in 
his bulk, brilliance, power, or prosperity. But 
we who read the word of God know that there 
is an increase in men's eyes which is a dwarf- 
ing, shrinking, and shrivelling of the life in 
God's sight. We know also that there is a de- 
crease in human eyes, which as God sees it, is 
a glorious enlargement and growth. 
The greatest thing possible in any life is to 
have the divine plan for it fulfilled, the divine 
will go on in it, even though it thwarts every 
human hope and dashes away every earthly 
dream. It is not easy for us to learn the lesson 
that God's ways are always better for us than 
our own. We make our little plans and begin 
to carry them out. We think we have all 
things arranged for the greatest happiness 
and the best good. Then God's plan breaks 
in upon ours and we look down through our 
[98] 



lolling ^tU in €\)vi^t 

tears upon the shattered fragments of very 
rare visions. It seems wreck, loss, and disas- 
ter. But no — it is only God's larger, wiser, 
better plan displacing our little, imperfect, 
shortsighted one. Is it true that God really 
thinks about our lives and has a purpose of his 
own for them, a place he would have us fill, a 
work he would have us do, a witness he would 
have us bear? It seems when we think of it 
that this is scarcely possible — that each one of 
the lives of his countless children should be 
personally and individually thought about by 
the Father. Yet we know that this is true of 
the least and lowliest of us. Surely if God 
cares enough for us to make a plan for our 
life, a heavenly plan, it must be better than 
any plan of ours could be. It is a high honor, 
therefore, for us to let his plan take the place 
of ours and go on in our lives, whatever the 
cost and the pain may be to us. 

'• This thing on which thy heart was set, this thing 

that cannot be, 
This weary, disappointing day that dawns, my 

friend, for thee : 

[99] 

ILofC. 



Ci^e le^json of lote 



Be comforted; God knoweth best, the God whose 

name is Love, 
Whose tender care is evermore our passing lives 

above. 
He sends thee disappointment f Well, then, take 

it from his hand. 
Shall God^s appointment seem less good than what 

thyself had planned f 

***Twas in thy mind to go abroado He bids thee 

stay at home. 
Oh ! happy home ; thrice happy, if to it, thy Guest, 

he come. 
^Twas in thy mind thy friend to see. The Lord 

says, * Nay, not yet 
Be confident ; the meeting time thy Lord will not 

forget. 
^Twas in thy mind to work for him. His will is, 

* Child, sit still; ' 
And surely His thy blessedness to mind the Master's 

will. 
Accept thy disappointment, friend, thy gift from 

God's own hand. 
Shall God's appointment seem less good than what 

thyself had planned f *' 

This law of the dying of self and the magni- 
fying of Christ is the only way to true use- 
fulness. Not until self has been renounced is 
[100] 



any one ready for true Christian service. 
While we are thinking how this or that will 
affect us, whether it will pay us to make this 
sacrifice or that self-denial; while we are con- 
sulting our own ease, our own comfort, our 
own interest or advantage in any form, we 
have not yet learned fully what the love of 
Christ means. 

This projecting of self into our serving of 
our fellow-men mars the service and hinders 
its effectiveness. We wonder if the person is 
worthy, and if he is not, we do not want to 
waste our love upon him. We resent with im- 
patience the lack of gratitude in those we aid. 
We decline to serve others because they are be- 
neath us. That is, we put all our life on a 
commercial basis and unless it seems to promise 
well in the way of outcome, we are not ready 
for it. We need to learn the true meaning of 
Christ's love, for* he never asks whether we are 
worthy or not, nor does he keep account of the 
number of times he has forgiven us. The law 
of love, which is the one law of all Christian 
life, does not follow the world's maxims. It is 
[101] 



Ci^e ieji^on of loije 

not so much for so much. It asks not if there 
will be a return. It does not keep account of 
treatment received and strike a balance for the 
governance of its future actions. It gives and 
serves and helps regardless of what it has re- 
ceived or may receive. 

* * According to my cup I must 
Pour out my wine^ although the dust 
Both drink it up when it should he 
A living draught perpetually ; 
And I must hreaU my wheaten bread, 
Though none upon its strength are fed, " 

This law of the dying of self and the magni- 
fying of Christ is the secret of Christian 
peace. When Christ is small and self is large 
in us life cannot be deeply restful. Every- 
thing annoys us. We grow impatient of 
whatever breaks our comfort. We grieve over 
little trials. We find causes for discontent in 
merest trifles. We resent whatever would hin- 
der or oppose us. There is no blue sky in the 
picture of which self is the centre. There are 
no stars shining overhead. It begins and ends 
[ 102] 



losing ^elf in €)^vi^t 

in a little patch of dusty floor, with gray walls 
surrounding it and shutting it in. 
But when self decreases and Christ increases, 
then the picture is enlarged and takes in all of 
heaven's over-arching beauty. Then the stars 
shine down into its night and sunshine bathes 
its day. Then the life of friction and worry 
is changed into quietness and peace. When 
the glory of Christ streams over this little, 
cramped, fretted, broken life of ours, peace 
comes and the love of Christ brightens every 
spot and sweetens all bitterness. Trials are 
easy to bear when self is small and Christ is 
large. 

We are apt to grow weary of the bitter, sor- 
rowful struggle that goes on in our hearts, 
evermore, between the old nature and the new, 
between the old self and the new Christ. It 
seems sometimes as if it never would be ended. 
It seems, too, at times, as if we were making no 
progress in the struggle, as if there were no 
decreasing of self, no increasing of Christ. 
We find the old evil things unconquered still, 
after years of battling — the old envies and 
[ 103] 



Cl^e JLejSjSon of toU 



jealousies, the old tempers, the old greed, the 
old irritabilities, the old doubt and fear and 
unbelief. Will there never be release from this 
conflict? 

Yes, if only we live patiently and bravely, in 
faith and love and loyalty, self will decrease 
and Christ will increase until he fills our whole 
life. If we reach up ever toward the light, our 
past of failure and unworthiness will be left 
behind and we shall grow into the fulness of 
the stature of Christ. The new will conquer 
and expel the old until it becomes "None of 
self and all of thee." 



[ 104] 



dPt^otjjtng l)t Abandonment 



[105] 



I hear it singing^ singing sweetly^ 

Softly in an undertone ; 
Singing as if God had taught it. 

" It is better farther on.'^ 

By night and day it sings the same song^ 

Sings it while I sit alone ; 
Sings it so the heart may hear it — 

'' It is letter farther onJ^ 

It sings upon the grave^ and sings it — 
Sings it when the heart would groan / 

Sings it when the shadows darken — 
'' It is tetter farther on.'''' 

Farther on ? How much farther ? 

Count the mile-stones one hy one. 
No ! No counting — only trusting ; 

^^It is better farther on." 

— Joseph Parker. 



[106] 



CHAPTER NINTH 

(ta!tot»mg hv abandonment 




GENIAL author has writ- 
ten a little book on the evo- 
lution of an ideal, taking 
as her text the quotation, 
"The way of life is won- 
derful; it is by abandon- 
ment." Most people think that the way of 
life is by acquisition, by getting things and 
keeping them, by accumulating and conserv- 
ing. But the saying is true — it is by aban- 
donment, by letting things go and leaving 
them behind, when they have fulfilled their 
purpose, that we really grow. Bulk is not 
greatness. It is in being, not in having, that 
character consists. 

Saint Paul gives us in a remarkable sentence a 
plan of life, a scheme of progress. He says 
it is by forgetting the things that are behind 
and stretching forward to things that are be- 
fore, that we grow. As we think of it, we see 
[107] 



Ci^e tmon of lolje 



that this is the only true way to live. Child- 
hood is very sweet and beautiful, but no one 
would want to stay a child always. The boy 
is not sorry when he feels himself growing into 
manhood. He seems to be leaving much be- 
hind — much that is winning and attractive. 
Perhaps his mother grieves as she sees him los- 
ing one by one the things she has always liked 
— his curls, his boyish ways, his delicate feat- 
ures, the qualities that kept him a child, and 
taking on elements of strength, marks of man- 
hood. 

But if he remained always a boy, a child 
with curls and dainty tastes, what a piti- 
ful failure his life would be ! He can press to 
the goal of perfection only by putting away, 
letting go, leaving behind, the sweetness, the 
gentleness, the simplicity, the innocence of 
boyhood. 

The same principle runs through all life. 
Manhood is stern, strong, heroic. It would 
seem that childhood is more beautiful. It is 
sweeter, daintier, more winning. But who re- 
grets passing from childhood's gentleness and 
[108] 



(0t:oi»m8 bt ^IbanDonment 

attractiveness to man's strength and rugged- 
ness, and man's hard tasks ? 
Nazareth was easier by far to Jesus than what 
came after — the homelessness, the long jour- 
neys, the enmities, the persecutions, the strug- 
gles, the sufferings. But when he left the 
carpenter shop and went to the Jordan to 
be baptized, thence to the wilderness to be 
tempted, and thence started on the way to 
his cross, was he sorry? 

** That evening when the Carpenter swept out 

The fragrant shavings from the workshop floor y 
And placed the tools in order , and shut to 

And barred, for the last time, the humble door. 
And going on his way tcrsave the world, 
Turned from the laborer's lot for evermore, 
I wonder — was he glad ? 

** That morning when the Carpenter walked forth, 
From JosepNs doorway in the glimmering 
light, 
And bade his holy mother long farewell. 
And, through the rose-shot skies with dawning 
bright, 
Saw glooming dark the shadows of the Cross, 
Yet, seeing, set his feet toward Calvary's height, 
I wonder — was he sad f '* 

[ 109 ] 



Ci^e tmon of toU 

He was eager to go forth from the quiet of 
his peasant home and his happy Hf e among 
friends and neighbors in the Uttle Galilean 
village, to enter upon the great work for which 
he had come into the world. There are many 
intimations of this eagerness in the story of 
our Lord's life as given in the gospels. He 
spoke of the baptism with which he must be 
baptized, and said that he was straitened until 
it should be accomplished. At another time 
he said : "We must work the works of him that 
sent me, while it is day : the night cometh, when 
no man can work." At one time it is said that 
as he and his disciples were on their way, go- 
ing up to Jerusalem, Jesus pressed on before 
them so eagerly that the disciples were amazed 
and awed, unable to understand his eagerness. 
He knew what awaited him at Jerusalem, but 
instead of holding back, he hastened on, im- 
pelled by a resistless desire to do his Father's 
will. 

It would have been' easier, knowing all the fu- 
ture, for him to stay in his mother's home at 
Nazareth, working at his trade, and living a 
[110] 



d^rotoing lit abanDottment 

quiet life, than to go forth into the way 
of struggle, toil, and pain, which led to a 
cross. But he forgot the easy, pleasant 
things which were behind, and with joy en- 
tered on the harder way before him as he 
pressed toward the goal. A word in the 
Epistle to the Hebrews tells us that for the 
joy set before him he endured the cross, de- 
spising the shame. 

So every true and worthy life rejoices to leave 
the ease and rest and comfort of the days of 
training and preparation and go on to where 
the burdens are heavier, the paths steeper and 
rougher and the thorns sharper, if thus fuller, 
larger manhood is reached. 
It takes courage and resolution to continue 
ever moving away from our past. We would 
like to keep the things we have learned to love, 
and we do not want to break away from them. 
Some people are not willing to leave their sor- 
rows behind. They never come out of the 
shadows of their griefs. They stay back with 
their dead. They do not wish to come away 
from the graves where they have buried their 

[111] 



Ci^e lejsjson of Hoije 

heart's treasures. They never forget their 
sorrows. 

But this Is not God's will for us. Of course 
we cannot forget love — that never can be our 
duty. We cannot but miss sweet compan- 
ionships — we would be unloving, and disloyal 
to our heart's covenants, if we could. But 
there is a way of forgetting our griefs in 
which we still keep all that is sacred of the 
friendships which have meant so much to us, 
and yet go on with joy and victory in our 
hearts, to a life all the richer and more beauti- 
ful because of our sorrow. 
We should never leave behind us anywhere in 
life, in any experience, anything that is good 
and true. George Eliot said : "I desire no fu- 
ture that will break the ties of the past." We 
are not living wisely if we are losing anything 
out of our hands as we go on. In nature noth- 
ing is ever really lost. When wood is burned 
its form is changed, but no particle of it is 
wasted. The blossom is not lost when it falls 
off to make room for the coming of the fruit. 
The lovely things of childhood are not lost 
[112] 



(10!toia)ing hv abanDonntent 

when they are given up for the things that dis- 
place them. Whatever is beautiful stays in 
the life always — only the outward form per- 
ishes or changes. We never can lose our 
friends. They may leave us as to their visible 
presence, passing from us so that we cannot 
see them any more; but what they were to us 
is ours forever ; what they did for us, — the im- 
pressions they left upon us, the lessons they 
taught us, the touches they put upon our char- 
acters, these we never can lose. 
Abandonment therefore is not losing. We 
only give up the hull while we keep the kernel. 
The flower fades, but its fragrance remains in 
our hearts, and its life is continued in the fruit 
which comes in the blossom's place. The song 
is forgotten, but its melody stays in our mem- 
ory and its sweetness in our life. We leave the 
days behind us when we have lived them, and 
never can go over them again. But the gifts 
the days brought us from God, the lessons we 
learned from their experiences, it would be 
treason for us to forget, or to fail to carry 
with us. 

[113] 



Cl^e tt^&on of loije 



Sometimes we say that if only we could live 
our past time over again we would live it bet- 
ter. This is an unavailing yearning, for time 
never turns back. But we may live to-mor- 
row as we would live to-day if we could go 
over it a second time. That is a true use of 
our past — penitence over our mistakes and 
follies, and the learning of the lessons for the 
days that yet remain. 

So we may go on, giving up the things that 
are dear, but losing nothing that was good or 
worthy in them, forgetting the things that are 
behind, but passing ever to new things. Thus 
we shall ever go from good to better, from 
blossom to fruit, from hope to fruition, from 
prophecy to fulfilment. Henry van Dyke 
puts it thus : 

Let me but live my life from year to year, 
With forward face and unreluotant soul, 

Wot hastening to nor turning from the goal; 
Nor mourning things that disappear 
In the dim past, nor holding hack in fear 

From what the future veils; hut with a whole 

And happy heart that pays its toll 

To youth and age, and travels on with cheer, 
[114] 



So let the way wind up the hill or down, 

Through rough or smooth ; the journey will he 

joy, 
Still seeking what I sought when hut a hoy, — 

New friendship, high adventu7'e, and a crown. 
I shall grow old, hut never lose life's zest, 
Because the road's last turn will he the best. 



[115] 



leabfng %^in^^ SinDone 



[117] 



" One of these days when the sun sinks low^ 
With the glory of God in its after-glow^ 
We will pause and think of the things undone^ 
Of what we lost^ 
Of what we have won^ — 
One of these days. 

" One of these days^ when we older grow^ 
With the glory of God in our after-glow^ 
We will pause and think of what we have won^ 
And God grant naught will le found undone^ 
One of these days,'^ 



[118] 



CHAPTER TENTH 

Jleaijtng Ci^tngjS anDone 




MONG the memorabilia of 
a good man in ancient times 
it is said: "He left noth- 
ing undone." That is 
more than can be said of 
most people. The best of 
us are apt to leave many things undone. In 
our formula of confession we are accustomed 
to say: "We have left undone those things 
which we ought to have done; and we have 
done those things which we ought not to have 
done." 

Perhaps we do not often think of it, however, 
as really sinful not to do things. We admit 
that it is wrong to treat another unkindly ; do 
we understand that it is wrong also not to 
show the kindness we had the call to show? 
We know it is sinful to speak a harsh or bitter 
word to another ; do we always remember that 
it is a sin not to say the word of cheer or com- 
[119] 



Ci^e le^json oC toU 



fort we had the opportunity to say, and which 
our neighbor so much needed and longed to 
hear? If we must give account for idle words, 
we must also give account for idle silences. 

* ' WTiat silences we keep year after year 
With those who are most near to us and dear ; 
We live beside each other day hy day, 
And speak of myriad things, hut seldom say 
The full sweet word that lies just in our reach, 
Beneath the commonplace of common speech, 

' * Then out of sight and out of reach they go — 
These close , familiar friends who loved us so / 
And sitting in the shadow they have left. 
Alone with loneliness^ and sore bereft, 
We think with vain regret, of some fond word 
That once we might have said, and they have 
heard/' 

Very much of our Lord's teaching refers to 
sins of not doing. The man with the one tal- 
ent was condemned, not because he used his tal- 
ent in any wrong way, but because he did not 
use it at all. The priest and the Levite did the 
wounded man no injury. They probably even 
felt kindly toward him and expressed sympa- 
[ 120 ] 



Healjing Ci^fngjs annone 

thy with him. Yet the story reads as if they 
sinned grievously against him. They wronged 
him by not giving him the help and the relief 
he needed and which they had been sent there 
expressly to give. Their passing by on the 
other side was a cruel wrong against him — a 
sin of leaving a duty undone. 
In our Lord's description of the Judgment, 
those on the left hand are condemned not for 
evil things which they had done, but for their 
neglect of love's duties. "I was an hungered, 
and ye gave me no meat : I was thirsty, and ye 
gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye 
took me not in : naked, and ye clothed me not : 
sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not." 
They had not oppressed the poor, they had 
not robbed men, they had not gone about 
wounding others. Nothing whatever is said 
of their sins, saving that they had not done the 
deeds of love to those who needed such minis- 
tries. They had left undone things which 
they ought to have done. 

It is in this way that many people fail most 

seriously in living. No grave fault can be 

[ 121 ] 



Ci^e tmon of toU 



found with their conduct, with the things they 
do. They are upright, true, dihgent in busi- 
ness, but their lives are full of omissions and 
neglects. How was it yesterday with you? 
Did you see one who needed help, comfort, re- 
lief, or encouragement, and did you fail to do 
anything for him? Do not many of us need 
to pray with the saintly man who used to say, 
"Lord, forgive my sins, especially my sins of 
omission" ? 

Many of the best of us leave many things un- 
touched which we ought to have finished. 
Most men die with many tasks only begun and 
left uncompleted. Life is too large for us; 
we cannot do all that it is our duty to do. 
After we have done our best we have not at- 
tained even our own standard of what we ought 
to have done. None of us do any day all the 
things we meant to do, and none of us ever do 
anything as well as we intended to do it. 

^^ I wonder if ever a song was sung 

But the singer'' s heart sang sweeter ! 
I wonder if ever a rhyme was rung 
But the thought surpassed the meter I 
[122] 



Leaitng Cl^tngjs (HnDone 

" / wonder if ever a sculptor wrought 

Till the cold stone echoed his ardent thought ! 
Or if ever a painter with light and shade 
The dream of his inmost heart portrayed ! 

* * / wonder if ever a rose was found 
And there might not he a fairer ! 
Or if ever a glittering gem was ground 
And we dreamed not of a rarer ! 

** Ah, never on earth do we find the best, 
But it waits for us in the land of rest ; 
And a perfect thing we shall never behold 
Till we pass the portals of shining gold, ' ' 

Indeed no one ever ought to do everything 
that he might do. There is a duty of omitting. 
Some people scatter their energies over a hun- 
dred broad fields of activity when it were far 
better if they would confine themselves to one 
little spot which they could transform into a 
garden of beauty. There are those who know 
a little of everything under heaven and know 
nothing well enough to make a definite and 
accurate statement about it. We should show 
our wisdom in the selection we make of the 
things which we shall do. Some people select 
[123] 



Ci^e tt^^on of lotie 



a few things, but choose those that are least 
worth while, and omit the most important. 
Each one of us is set to do but a little frag- 
ment of work. No one does all of anything. 
We are responsible only for the small section 
that is allotted to us. We should do that well, 
putting into it our best skill, our utmost faith- 
fulness. Then we need not trouble ourselves 
about the part we cannot do. That is not our 
work at all — some other one is waiting to do it, 
and at the right time he will come forward 
ready for it. Many of us vex ourselves un- 
necessarily over things for which we have not 
the smallest measure of responsibility. We 
would save ourselves a vast outlay of strength 
and energy if we would learn to confine our- 
selves strictly to the things that clearly belong 
to us. Jean Ingelow teaches us a wise lesson : 

/ am glad to think 

I am not bound to make the world go right, 

But only to discover and to do, 

With cheerful heart, the work that God appoints. 

But we should be certain always really to seek 

to "discover and to do" our own part, small or 

[ 124] 



jLeaiJing Ci^mQji enDone 

large, with the utmost faithfulness. Not to 
do this, to leave undone the things we ought 
to have done, will be to leave a blank in the 
universe where there ought to have been good 
work well done. 

So our lesson calls us to earnestness and fidelity 
in the doing of our allotted tasks. "He left 
nothing undone." This fine commendation of 
one man should set us to thinking about our- 
selves and our own doing. We need not fret 
about the little that our neighbor does and the 
much that he is leaving undone; he may be 
very negligent — perhaps he is — ^but that is 
not our matter. Our own life is our matter, 
however, for we shall have to give account for 
it. What blanks are we leaving, you and I, 
these passing days? What things that we 
ought to have done for others — things of love, 
kindness, encouragement, uplifting, cheer, 
comfort — have we been leaving undone.'^ 
What things that we ought to have done for 
our Master — holy living, heroism in duty, 
firmness in purpose, self-effacement that he 
may be honored — have we been omitting.'^ 
[ 125 ] 



Ci^e !LejS0on of JLotie 



The only way to make sure of leaving nothing 
undone at the last is to do each day's work in 
its day. Let us never postpone or defer any 
duty that comes to our hand, for we shall not 
pass this way again. Let us make sure before 
we sleep any night that nothing has been omit- 
ted that day, no little task, no service of love. 
Life is too sacred to be marred by blanks and 
breaks. One of the darkest shadows that can 
fall upon any soul in its last days is the 
shadow cast by the things left undone. 



[126] 



JLiWng tot tl^e 13ejst Cl^tngjSi 



[127] 



'' There are loyal hearts^ there are spirits brave^^ 
There are souls that are pure and true : 
Then give to the world the best you have^ 
And the best shall come back to you. 

** Give love^ and love to your heart willflow^ 
A strength in your utmost need ; 
Have faith^ and a score of hearts will show 
Their faith in your word and deed. 

" For life is the mirror of king and slave^ 
' Tis just what you are and do ; 
Then give to the world the best you have 
And the best will come back to you. " 



[128] 



CHAPTER ELEVENTH 

Ltting for tl^e "hm Ci^ingjs 




N one of our Lord's lesser 
parables there is a pleasant 
story of a man who was in 
the pearl business. He was 
always on the quest for 
pearls. He must have been 
a lover of beauty, for pearls are very beauti- 
ful. In ancient times they were regarded as 
the richest of all gems. Writers of those days 
speak in highest praise of their value. 
The poets had romantic fancies about the ori- 
gin of the pearl. They said it was first a drop 
of dew which fell from heaven and which a 
shell-fish opened its mouth and took in. With- 
in the shell the crystal dewdrop was condensed, 
doubling its original perfections. They said, 
further, that the pearl took its hue from the 
heavens, and its iridescence from the seven col- 
ors of the rainbow. 

The story of the true origin of the pearl 
[129] 



Ci^e Lejs^on of loiie 



though not so romantic as that of the poet's, 
is very interesting. Pearls are not precious 
stones, as are diamonds, emeralds, and rubies. 
They are of animal origin. They are found 
in certain shell-fish, especially in the pearl 
oyster. It is generally supposed that they are 
the fruit of wounding and suffering. Minute 
foreign substances, like tiny grains of sand, 
find their way within the shell. Friction and 
suffering are caused and the wounds are cov- 
ered by a secretion which the oyster exudes, 
which hardens into what we know as pearls. 
Hence comes the saying, "The oyster mends 
its shell with a pearl." 

The man in the Master's story sought for 
pearls — he went over the world looking for 
them and buying all he could get. It is said, 
too, that he sought for goodly pearls, that is, 
for the best — the whitest, purest, largest pearls 
he could find. Thus he represents those who 
seek for good things in life — not the good, 
merely, but the very good, the best things. 
There are good things, and things that are 
better, and things that are best. We do not 
[ 130] 



have to choose merely between the good and 
the bad, but between the good and the best. 
It is worth our while to ask ourselves whether 
we are indeed striving for the best things, or 
whether our aims are lower than the highest. 
We may apply the test to every department 
of our life, and not alone to moral and spiritual 
things. Religion has to do with all our days 
and all our tasks. Hiram Golf said he would 
be judged by the way he made and mended 
shoes. Stradivarius, the old violin-maker, said 
that he would rob God and leave a blank in the 
universe if he did not make good violins. 
Even God, he said, could not make man's best 
without man's best to help him. In every line 
of duty we rob God if we are content with less 
than the best we can do. 

This is true of all our work. It is a sin to do 
anything carelessly or in a slovenly way. Dil- 
igence in business is bracketed in the Scriptures 
with fervency of spirit and serving the Lord. 
Nothing ever should satisfy us but the best we 
can do. 

*^ Not failure, 'but low aim is sin,'*^ 

[ 131 ] 



Ci^e le^j^on of Jlotje 



In the culture of character no ideal but the 
perfect one ever should be set before us. We 
are all builders — we are set to build radiant 
temples, fit to be dwelling places for God. The 
trouble is, however, that we are satisfied to 
build poor little wooden barracks instead of 
temples of marble and gold. We should never 
be willing to be less noble and beautiful in our 
character than the noblest and most beautiful. 
We should never be content with even the fair- 
est human loveliness alone. Artists say that a 
picture without a bit of sky in it is defective. 
It is flat and low and lacks height. A life 
without sky, which does not reach up and take 
in heaven, has not attained its best. This 
world is very beautiful. It is our Father's 
world. It is strewn with pearls. We do well 
to seek these shining gems and gather them 
into our hands. But if in our quest we fail to 
find the one pearl of great price, we have 
failed to find anything which we can keep for- 
ever. 

We need not even ask what the Master meant 

by the pearl of great price. It is life, eternal 

[132] 



life. It is Christ himself, with all that his sal- 
vation is to those who accept him. There was 
only one great pearl valuable enough to be 
purchased at the price this merchant paid — all 
that he had. Jesus Christ is peerless and alone 
in his greatness among men. He is the one al- 
together lovely. No one of all who ever knew 
him claimed that there was any sin or fault in 
him. No witness could be found to testify to 
any evil thing that he had done. 
Not only was he without sin, but in him all 
moral and spiritual beauty found its complete 
development. Plato expressed a desire that the 
moral law might become a living personage, 
that men seeing it thus incarnate, might be 
charmed by its beauty. Plato's wish was ful- 
filled in Jesus Christ. The holiness and the 
beauty of the divine law were revealed in him. 
The Beatitudes contain an outline of the ideal 
life, but the Beatitudes are only a rescript of 
the life of Christ himself. What he taught 
about love was but his own love stated in a 
course of living lessons for his friends to learn. 
When he said we should be patient, gentle, 
[133 ] 



Cl^e JLejsgjon of toU 



thoughtful, forgiving, and kind, he was only 
saying: "Follow me.'' 

Jesus called himself the Son of man — ^not the 
son of a man, but the Son of man, that is, of 
humanity. Someone suggests that if we could 
gather from all who ever have lived the little 
fragments of lovely character which have blos- 
somed out in each and bring all these frag- 
ments into one personality, we should have the 
beauty of Jesus Christ. In one person you find 
gentleness, in another meekness, in another 
purity of heart, in another humility, in an- 
other kindness, in another patience — there is 
no one so sunken in sin that in him there is not 
some tiny flower of beauty. But in the holiest 
of men there are only two or three qualities 
of ideal beauty, with much that is stained and 
flecked mingled with these qualities. In Christ, 
however, the Son of man, all that is excellent 
is found, with no flaw. He is perfect man, not 
only sinless, but complete in his person. He is 
the pearl of great price. 

As Saviour, also, Jesus is without equal. 

There was only one peerless pearl — there is 

[134] 



lining fot ti^e 'BejSt Cl^mgjs 

only one Redeemer, only one who can save. 
"In him was life." He is the one fountain of 
life at which every one of us must fill his cup 
if he would partake of life. He is the light of 
the world, the one light at which every one of 
us must light his little lamp if he would shine 
on the darkness of this world. He is the one 
Saviour in whom we must all believe if we 
would have eternal life. He is the one only 
Friend in whom any of us can find what our 
hearts hunger for of love, of companionship, 
of all that divine friendship means. 
When this merchant had found the one pearl, 
how did he make it his own? He bought it. 
What did he give for it? "He went and sold 
all that he had^ and bought it.'' Nor was it a 
bad investment. Sometimes men dispose of all 
they have and invest in some scheme which only 
fools them, eats up their possessions and leaves 
them beggared. But nobody was ever a loser 
from selling all his other pearls and buying 
the pearl of great price. It is the true riches, 
imperishable and eternal. 

In all life we find this principle — that we must 
[135] 



Ci^e tmon of toU 



give up the lesser to get the greater. A young 
girl away at school wrote to a friend that she 
liked her school very much — everybody was 
lovely and everything was beautiful — but she 
thought she would not go back another year, 
because she could not bear to be away from her 
happy home. The friend wrote her, saying 
that her work now was to make the most of her- 
self, to have her powers developed, disciplined 
and trained, to attain to whatsoever things are 
lovely in womanhood, and that it might be 
necessary for her to give up the pleasure, the 
ease, the freedom of life at home, for a while, 
in order to reach the nobleness visioned in her 
heart when she prayed or sat at Christ's table. 
"He went and sold all that he had, and bought 
it." We can get the best in no other way. 
A man says : "I know I am not as good as I 
ought to be, but it is hard to give up my faults 
and vices." No matter how hard it is, our 
Master calls us up higher, and we should give 
up all that is unworthy in order to obey him. 
We get wedded to our routines of life and do 
not like to sacrifice them for the sake of new 
[136] 



Itting tot tl^e 'Bt^t Cl^ttTg^ 

things. A familiar saying is : "The good is 
often the enemy of the best." The good is 
never worthy of us if there be a better possible. 
Men do not keep the old machinery in their 
mills when better machines have been invented. 
In schools and colleges the new education has 
supplanted the old. The ancient text-books 
are of no use now — indeed, we have to get 
new text-books almost every year to keep pace 
with the rapid march of science. Some of the 
older people remember the day of tallow can- 
dles, but these gave way to lamps, and lamps 
to gas, and gas to electricity. Some of us re- 
member the old mail coach and the long wait 
for letters coming only a few miles. Now we 
have the hourly mail deliveries and the swift 
trains and steamers. And impatient with even 
this slow communication we talk over telephone 
wires with a friend a thousand miles away and 
have our telegraph service girdling the world. 
Again the better is crowding out the good, and 
we are beginning to talk across the sea with- 
out wires. 

In the little story, the merchant had gathered 
[137] 



Cl^e Xe^^on of toU 



many pearls, goodly pearls, until he possessed 
a rare collection. Then he saw one pearl which 
far surpassed in beauty and value any pearl 
of all that he owned. He was so enraptured 
with it, and so eager to possess it, that he sold 
all his large store and bought this one noble, 
peerless pearl. And he never regretted the ex- 
change, for the one was worth more than all 
the many. 

We can well afford to give up all things else 
to get Christ. If we have all other things 
and do not have Christ, we are hopelessly poor. 
But if we have Christ we are rich though our 
hands be empty of earth's treasures. 

** O grant that nothing in my soul 

May dwell but thy pure love alone ; 

O may thy love possess me whole, 
My joy, my treasure, and my crown ; 

Strange fires far from my soul remove; 

My every act^ word, thought, be love/^ 

The law of Christian life is progress — prog- 
ress by giving up the good to take the better. 
We never come to a point where we may rest 
content because we have reached the full meas- 
[138] 



JLiiJtng for tl^e 1$e0t Cl^tng^ 

ure of our attainment and achievement. Heav- 
en ever lies above us, however high we cHmb. 
There always are better things to gain, how- 
ever full our hands may be of goodly treasures. 
Sweet as is the joy that fills our hearts to-day, 
there is a still sweeter song that we may learn 
to sing. 

" The song unsung more sweet shall ring 
Than any note that yet has rung ; 
More sweet than any earthly thing. 

The song unsung ! 
A harp there lies, untouched, unstrung 
As yet hy man, but time shall bring 
A player by whose art and tongue 
Tliis song shall sound to God the King ; 
The world shall cling as ne'er it clung 
To Qod and heaven, and all shall sing 

The song unsung,'* 



[139] 



^nUn% ann follotuing €\^ti^t 



[141] 



" ^Tis not for man to trifle — 
Life is brief ^ and sin is here. 
Our age is hut the falling of a leaf^ 

The dropping of a tear. 
Not many lives^ hut only one^ have we^ 

One^ only one ; 
How sacred should that one life he ! 
We have no time to sport away the hours ; 
All must he earnest in a world like ours. " 



[142] 



CHAPTER TWELFTH 




ERVING Christ is some- 
thing very practical. Some 
people seem to think it is 
something aside from their 
common life, something 
that belongs only to Sun- 
days, something that can be done only in cer- 
tain holy moments. But it is really one's very 
life, or it is nothing. It does not consist mere- 
ly in acts of worship. There are times when 
one's first and most sacred duty is to stay away 
from a religious service. A young mother was 
regretting that she had been able to attend 
church so rarely during the six months since 
her baby came. But if the baby really needed 
a mother's care all those months, she would 
have been unfaithful to her Master if she had 
neglected it even to attend church services. 
A pleasant story-poem tells of a young girl 
left by a dying mother in charge of a little sick 
sister. All her days and nights were filled 
[143] 



Ci^e iLeiSjSon of lotje 



with this care of love. She could not attend 
church services nor take any part in Christ's 
work outside of her little home. It grieved 
her, for she loved Christ and longed to be of 
use in his service. 

One night she dreamed that the King had 
come, and she stood before him, painfully ex- 
plaining whj'^ she had not been able to do any 
work for him because all her time and strength 
were required in caring for the suffering child. 
"And the child is mine," said the King. She 
could not have served him better than in tend- 
ing this little one of his that needed her care 
and was her special charge. If she had failed 
in this duty even in order to attend church 
services, if she had neglected this sick child in 
order to help others outside her home, the Mas- 
ter would have been grieved. 
Our duty in serving Christ lies always near to 
our hand. It is never some impossible thing 
that he wants us to do. There was an artist 
who wished to leave behind him some noble 
work that would live through all time. He 
sought for material fine enough for his dream. 
[ 144] 



periling aui) sJfollotDtng €f^ti^t 

He travelled to distant lands and journeyed 
far and near in vain quest for what he sought. 
He came home an aged man, weary and disap- 
pointed, and found that from the common clay 
beside his own door his old apprentice had 
made marvels of loveliness which were praised 
by all who saw them, and had won him fame. 
So many people longing to do noble things for 
Christ look far off for the opportunities, miss- 
ing meanwhile services which wait for them 
close by their doors. Nothing is grander for 
us any day than the quiet doing of God's will, 
simple faithfulness in common duty, making 
the best of what lies close to our hand. 

^' We complain 
That 'tis not gi'Den us to break some chain, 

To scale some peak, to fetch some golden fleece, 

To do some mighty deed whose light shall cease 

Only when moons no longer wax and wane. 
^Tis thus we empty all the springs of life, 

To lose the blessing at our very hand; 

For faith and love, with glory as of sun, 
Illume the path to peace through every strife, 

No work is futile that is nobly planned ; 

No deed is little if hut greatly done,'^ 
[ 145 ] 



Cl^e JLe^json of loije 



There is one quiet way all of us may serve 
Christ if we will — by letting the light of his 
love shine out in our faces and our lives, to 
brighten some little spot of earth that needs 
brightening. About four hundred years ago 
there lived a man in Italy who wanted to do 
something for the world. He painted a picture 
for a little obscure chapel near his home — a 
picture of the Christ Child and the Mother. 
Into the face of the Child he painted a soft 
light which has been a delight and a wonder 
ever since. It was a warm and hallowed light 
which brightened the face of the Mother as 
she bent over her Child, and filled all the scene 
with a gentle radiance. 

The picture was a benediction to the peasants 
who lived about the village and saw it in the 
chapel. They had their sorrows, their cares, 
their struggles, and that soft light cheered 
and heartened them and made their hard, nar- 
row life mean more to them. They called the 
painter Ariel, the light-bringer, because he 
had brought that holy shining into their lives. 
We may all serve Christ in this way — not by 
[146] 



^eriJing and follotoing €1^xi^t 

painting pictures like Correggio's, but by car- 
rying heavenly light on our faces in the love 
that shines there and does not fade out in the 
darkest night. 

Always serving Christ means living love's les- 
son among men. Religious meetings and acts 
of worship avail nothing in pleasing God if 
our hearts are full of bitterness and uncharity 
and if we do not fulfil the law of love. Jesus 
sharply reproved the religionists of his day 
because, while they were most punctilious in 
the observance of the minutest forms and cere- 
monials they lacked the qualities of mercy, jus- 
tice, and faith. It is just as true now as it 
was then that the religion which pleases Christ 
is a holy life, and a holy life is one in which 
love rules. It is not enough to be honest 
and true and upright — we must love each 
other as Christ loves us ; we must be patient, 
thoughtful, kind, helpful. Here is an even- 
ing prayer which will test the life of our 
busy days : 

" If any word of mine has caused one tear 
From other eyes to flow ; 

[ 14T ] 



Cl^e lejs^on of iLoije 



Jf I have caused one shadow to appear 

On any face I know ; 
If hut one thoughtless word of mine has stung 

Some loving heart to-day : 
Or if the word Tve left unsaid has wrung 

A single sigh, I pray, 
ThoUf tender Heart of love, forgive the sin. 

Help me to keep in mind 
That if at last I would thy * Well done ' win, 

In word as well as deed I must be kind.** 

Then we should serve Christ unweariedly. He 
does not call us to follow him for a little while, 
but until we are released and called home, 
There are things which test our perseverance. 
Some people are hindered in their earnestness 
in doing good by the ingratitude of those they 
try to help. Gratitude is very sweet, but 
Christian love is a holy passion which fails not 
when it meets no requital, even though it is re- 
jected and insulted. Others are disheartened 
by the seeming failure of what they do. 
"Nothing comes of it," they say. But we 
have the assurance that no true work for Christ 
is in vain. Somehow, some time, somewhere, all 
[ 148 ] 



periling and foUotDing Ci^tijst 

that we do for our Master will have its result 
and its reward. 

" What though the seed he cast by the wayside^ 
And the birds take it — yet the birds are fed." 

Though nothing seems to come of the good we 
do with love, yet Christ is honored, there is 
blessing in our own hearts, and there will be 
reward in glory. We may go on serving 
Christ, therefore, though we see no result. 
Nothing done for him can fail. 
Some are hindered in their work for Christ by 
sorrow. When they are bereft the tasks are 
dropped out of their hands. But sorrow does 
not in any sense release us from the service of 
our Master. 

There is a story of a woman who had had 
many sorrows. Parents, husband, children, 
w^ealth, all were gone. In her great grief she 
prayed for death, but death came not. She 
would not take up any of her wonted work for 
Christ. One night she had a dream. She 
thought she had gone to heaven. She saw her 
husband and ran to him with eager joy, ex- 
[ 149 ] 



Ci^e ILe^^on of toU 



peeling a glad weleome. But strange to say, 
no answering joy shone on his face — only sur- 
prise and displeasure. "How did you come 
here?" he asked. "They did not say you were 
to be sent for to-day. I did not expect you 
for a long time yet. ' 

With a bitter cry she turned from him to seek 
her parents. But instead of the tender love for 
which her heart was longing, she met from 
them only the same amazement and the same 
surprised questions, 

"I'll go to my Saviour," she cried. "He will 
welcome me if no one else does." When she 
saw Christ there was infinite love in his look, 
but his words throbbed with sorrow as he said : 
"Child, child, who is doing your work down 
there.?" At last she understood. She had no 
right yet to be in heaven. Her work was not 
finished. She had fled away from her duty. 
This is one of the dangers of sorrow, that in 
our grief for those who are gone we lose our 
interest in those who are living and slacken our 
zeal in the work which is allotted to us. When 
one asked to be allowed to go and bury his 
[ 150 ] 



^etiJt'ng and ^oUotutng Ci^tijst 

father before beginning to follow Christ, the 
answer was, "Leave the dead to bury their own 
dead; but go thou and publish abroad the 
kingdom of God." However great our be- 
reavement, we may not drop our tasks until 
the Master calls us away. 



[151] 



C(ti?en0]^ip in i^eatjen 



[153] 



" It is well to live in the valley sweety 

Where the work of the world is done^ 
Where the reapers sing in the fields of wheat ^ 

As they toil till the set of sun. 
But beyond the meadows the hills I see^ 

Where the noises of traffic cease^ 
And I follow a voice that calleth to me 

From the hilltop regions of peace. 

** Aye^ to live is sweet in the valley fair^ 

And to toil till the set of sun ; 
But my spirit yearns for the hilltop's air 

When the day and its work are done ; 
For a Presence breathes o'er the silent hills, 

And its sweetness is living yet ; 
The same deep calm all the hillside fills 

As breathed over Olivet. " 



[154] 



CHAPTER THIRTEENTH 



Cit(?en0]^tp in i^eaben 




UR Lord spoke a great deal 
of a kingdom that is not of 
this world. He said this 
kingdom does not come 
with observation; that is, 
men do not see its progress ; 
it makes no display of pomp and pageant. He 
said it is not an outward kingdom, but that its 
realm is within men's hearts and lives. It was 
this kingdom which Christ himself came to es- 
tablish and which he sent his disciples to win 
for him. He is the King. He sets up no 
throne in any earthly capital — his throne is 
in heaven. All who own Christ as Master are 
subjects of this kingdom, not of this world. 
Saint Paul puts it very clearly when he says, 
"Our citizenship is in heaven." Those who be- 
long to Christ are citizens of a heavenly com- 
monwealth. 

The thought is very interesting. 
[155] 



If you trav- 



Ci^e tmon of tou 



el through foreign countries, leaving behind 
your loved ones and your dearest interests, you 
will see many beautiful things — mountains 
and fields, cities, rivers, noble buildings, works 
of art — but your heart will be in your home- 
land all the while. Longfellow says : 

^ach man^s chimney is his golden milestone^ 
Is the central point, from which he measures 

Every distance 
Through the gateways of the world around him. 

So it should be with the Christian. He is liv- 
ing in this world for a time, going among the 
world's people, taking part in the world's af- 
fairs, but his heart is in heaven, his true home. 
His thoughts go continually to that blessed 
country. His highest interests are there. 
This does not mean that we are to neglect our 
work here. Sometimes men have made the mis- 
take of thinking that they could live near to 
God only by separating themselves from all 
earthly life. But this is not the way the Mas- 
ter wants us to do. 

The New Testament says not one word against 

the life of the world. Jesus did not ask that 

[156] 



Citi|enj2J]^ip in l^eatien 

his disciples should be taken out of this world 
— he asked that thej shouM stay here and 
be kept from the evil. The ancient Greeks 
thought that toil was vulgar. They had noth- 
ing to do with those who wrought in the shops 
or in the fields. But the religion of Christ 
from the beginning had the same message for 
the toiling masses and for the great and 
mighty. Instead of being antagonistic to 
godliness, work is a means of grace. We grow 
best, not away from men and ordinary human 
experiences, but in the midst of human interests 
and in connection with common tasks and du- 
ties. We grow best in spiritual life when we 
are doing our part the most diligently in the 
affairs of earth. "It is through the limita- 
tions, the collisions, the surprises, the monoto- 
nies of this w^ork-a-day world that we lay 
hold on the life which is life indeed." 
We are not therefore to retire from the toils 
and tasks of every-day life in order to cultivate 
saintliness. Saintliness does not lie on any such 
pathway, but is to be sought rather on the 
dusty mart, where men throng, where human 
[ 157 ] 



Cl^e tmon of toU 



needs make their appeal. The hohest duties 
of earth ofttimei§ are found in places which 
seem most unheavenly to our eyes. 
But we are to do all our work to please the 
Master. Our secular life should be penetrated 
by spiritual motives. Instead of unfitting men 
for doing the world's work, the grace of Christ 
should make them all the more proficient in 
secular duties. One may do the lowliest things 
in a heavenly way. One may work in the hum- 
blest calling and make it radiant, and live a 
saintly life, while another may be engaged in 
what is regarded as a sacred calling, and yet 
may do his work in a profane and an undevout 
manner. A bootblack may be more saintly, 
may live nearer to God, and may be a better 
citizen of heaven, than a minister of the gos- 
pel, busy in incessant religious duties. Brown- 
ing represents the angel Gabriel taking a boy's 
tasks in this world, doing the work well and 
praising God meanwhile. We have something 
finer even than that, however, not in a mere 
poet's fancy, but in gospel story. The Son of 
God came to earth and lived a human life and 
[158 1 



wrought at a common trade, teaching us that 
a holy motive glorifies the lowliest work. 

" YeSy yes, a carpenter — same trade as mine. 
It warms my heart as I read that line. 
I can stand the hard work, I can stand the poor 

For ril see that Carpenter at no distant day,'^ 

Yet while Jesus wrought at homeliest work his 
heart was in the holy of holies. He toiled 
cheerfully and did his work well because he 
was in communion with his Father. Even 
while engaged in the world's work we are to 
have a lofty, spiritual motive, seeking first the 
kingdom of God and his righteousness. If 
we do this, God will care for us. George Mac-' 
donald says that a man's business is just to do 
the will of God, and that then God takes upon 
himself the care of that man. 
When the heavenly citizenship is realized, sor- 
row finds comfort and blessing. There are 
those who say that because of the greatness of 
the sorrow of the race, it would have been bet- 
ter if there never had been any human life in 
[ 159 ] 



Cl^e lejsjson of iLoije 



this world. But we must wait until sorrow's 
work is finished before we speak so hopelessly. 
The deepest joys come out of the sorest griefs. 
"Your sorrow shall be turned into joy," the 
Master promised. It is when we let into the 
darkness of our trouble the sure hope of such 
transformation that the stars shine out in our 
night. Some people look only down in their 
time of grief — down into the grave, down into 
their own breaking hearts, down at the empti- 
ness, the ruin, and the darkness about them. 
These find no comfort. Others, with grief no 
less keen, with loss no less sore, look up into 
the face of God and see love there; look into 
heaven where their loved ones are ; look at the 
blessed stars of hope which shine above them, 
and are comforted. Whittier, in "Snow- 
bound," sets the two aspects of sorrow side by 
side : 

Alas for Mm who never sees 
The stars shine through his cypress trees! 
Who, hopeless, lays his dead away 
Nor looks to see the hreaMng day 
Across the mournful marbles play ! 

[160] 



€itUzm)^ip in i^eatien 

Who hath not learned, in hou7's of faith^ 
The truth to flesh and sense unknown^ 

That Life is ever lord of Death, 
And love can never lose its own. 

The only life that grows into the best charac- 
ter is that which has its source in heaven. This 
earth does not afford a large enough sphere 
for ,the growth of an immortal life to its full 
possibility. "A star cannot be imprisoned in 
a shed; it demands a sky; and to attain per- 
fection and fully display its glory, the soul 
demands a sky." The difference between the 
ethical culturist and the true Christian is that 
the former gathers into his character only 
human and earthly qualities, while the other 
builds in Christ and heaven besides. 
It is said that astronomers have discovered 
that a sensitized plate will photograph stars 
which the eye cannot see even with the strong- 
est telescope. You look with your naked eye 
and you see many stars. You look into a tele- 
scope and you see many more. Then you put 
your sensitized plate in its place and let the 
skies look into it for a while ; and on the plate 
[161] 



Cl^e tmon of JLoije 



you find imprinted the image of many other 
stars unrevealed even by the telescope. A man 
looks for the beautiful things of character and 
finds many in human lives. But in the perfect 
human life of Christ, where all the fulness of 
divinity is revealed, he finds a thousand lovely 
things which nowhere else on earth can be 
found. 

A character with none of the beauty of heaven 
in it is defective. One who never prays, who 
never ponders the words of God, who holds no 
fellowship with spiritual things, who lives only 
on the earth, thinking only earthly thoughts, 
groping ever in the glooms and mists of doubt 
and fear, may grow into a measure of beauty 
and may do some noble work, but he has missed 
the best — for the best can be found only in 
Jesus Christ. "He who never connects God 
with his daily life knows nothing of the spirit- 
ual meaning and the uses of life ; nothing of 
the calm, strong patience with which ills may 
be endured; of the gentle, tender comfort 
which the Father's love can minister; of the 
blessed rest to be realized in his forgiving love, 
[162] 



€(tt?en?|]^tp in i^eaten 

his tender Fatherhood; of the deep, peaceful 
sense of the infinite One ever near, a refuge 
and strength." 

There is more culture, more spiritual inspira- 
tion and uplift, in one hour's study of the 
character of Christ, than in years and years of 
the study of earth's best lives and rarest wis- 
dom. It is a law of life that our thoughts build 
our character. If we meditate on the purity, 
the holiness, the goodness, the love, the right- 
eousness, of God, these qualities will print 
themselves upon our own hearts. Saint Paul 
has given us an infallible direction for the best 
spiritual culture. "Whatsoever things are 
true, whatsoever things are honorable, what- 
soever things are just, whatsoever things are 
pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever 
things are of good report; if there be any 
virtue, and if there be any praise, think on 
these things." Then he adds, "These things 
do : and the God of peace shall be with you." 
If our citizenship is truly in heaven, we will 
receive inspiration and strength from above for 
all our life. It is never easy to live worthily 
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Ci^e lejs^on of toU 



and victoriously in this world. From first to 
last, life is a struggle between the natural and 
the spiritual. The gains we make must be won 
always in the face of antagonism. The re- 
wards and honors of life are only for "him that 
overcometh." We never can live victoriously 
if we fight alone. But if we are living in com- 
munion with Christy we have all the strength 
of omnipotence v/ith us in every struggle, in 
every striving, under every burden. Christ is 
alive and is with us always. 

* * Why do I ask and question f 

He is ever coming to me, 
Morning and noon and evening^ 

If I had but eyes to see ; 
And the daily load grows lighter, 

The daily cares grow sweet, 
For the Master is near, the Master is here; 

I have only to sit at his feet, "^^ 

Outside a garden wall hangs a noble vine which 
every year bears its great wealth of purple 
clusters. When you look for its root you find 
that it is inside the wall. Its home is in the 
garden where it has all care and nurture, while 
[164] 



its fruit hangs outside where the hungry may 
feed upon it. It should be thus with us. 
With the roots of our Hfe in heaven, we should 
bear fruit in this world to feed the hunger of 
men. 

** When one that holds communion with the skies 
Has filled his urn where those pure waters rise^ 
And once more mingles with us meaner things, 
' Tis even as if an angel shook his wings ; 
Immortal fragrance fills the circuit wide, 
That tells us wlience his treasures are supplied. '' 



[165] 



^ent 



[167] 



* ' / would have gone : God hade me stay ; 

/ would have worked : God hade me rest. 
He hroke my will from day to day, 
He read my yearnings unexpressed^ 
And said them nay. 

" Now I would stay : God bids me go ; 

Now I would rest : God bids une work. 
He breaks my heart tossed to andfro^ 
My soul is wrung with doubts that lurk 
And vex me so. 

^^ I go, Lord^ where thou sendest me; 
Day after day I plod and moil ; 
But^ Christ my God, when will it be 
That I Tnay let alone my toil^ 
And rest with thee f " 



[168] 



CHAPTER FOURTEENTH 



^ent 




E are all sent from God. 
At least we are unless we 
refuse to be sent. We are 
ready enough to admit that 
certain persons have been 
sent. For example, the 
Baptist. "There came a man, sent from God, 
whose name was John." Yes, some one says, 
but he was only one man, and he had a unique 
mission. He came speciiScally to herald the 
Messiah. Then there were the apostles, too — 
they were sent by the Master. The name 
apostle means sent. Yes, but there were only 
twelve of them, and they were Christ's personal 
friends, whom he had specially trained. It is 
easy to understand that they were sent by their 
Master. But our case is different. We be- 
long to a great uncounted throng. Can it be 
that we are sent from God, that each one of 
us is sent.'^ 

[169] 



Ci^e iLe^^on of toU 



Yes, each one of us is sent on an errand all our 
own, with our own word to speak, with some 
particular blessing intrusted to us for the 
world, which if we do not carry will never 
reach those for whom it was prepared. In 
the parable, two men were sent, one after the 
other, to help the wounded man, but both of 
them in turn passed on, not doing what they 
were sent to do. The Lord had to send a third 
man before he got that errand done. We are 
all sent on errands just as definite. What if 
we fail to do the things of love which we were 
sent to do, or to speak the word our Master 
sent us to speak .f^ 

" Condemned for silence f Yes, ah, yes ! 
Unspoken words have no redress ; 
For who must hear this awful cost : 
God sent a word, and it was lost f " 

** If any word thou sendest me, 
God, let me speak it clear for thee^ 

It does not follow that every one is sent to do 

something large or conspicuous. The lowly 

things, the little unnamed things of love, are 

[170] 



just as important in their place as the great 
things. A poet represents a buttercup amid 
the grass, crying to the great sun in the sky, 
in despair over its uselessness in comparison 
with the sun itself, which filled all the world 
with light. The sun bade the little flower not 
to despair. 

" God hung me in the great blue sky 
To light the world with my one big eye, 

To show men how they are living. 
But he put you down in the meadow lot 

The world is fairer than if you were not" 

We live best when we are most nearly what 
God made us to be, when we do most nearly 
what he sent us to do. A writer says that "re- ^ 
ligion is indeed a new picture of Jesus of Naz- 
areth." Our errand in this world is in a small 
way the same that Christ's errand was. He 
does not now himself, in person, go about do- 
ing good — ^we are to go for him. The only 
hands Christ has for doing kindnesses are our 
hands. The only feet he has to run the er- 
rands of love are our feet. The only voice he 
has to speak cheer to the troubled is our voice. 

[ ni ] 



Cl^e tt^^on of toU 



There is a story of a little child that had been 
put to bed in a dark room. She fretted at be- 
ing left alone^ and her mother brought her 
doll, Happy, to be with her. But that did not 
satisfy the child — she begged her mother to 
stay in the room with her. The mother re- 
minded her that she had Happy and God, and 
need not be afraid. Soon the child was heard 
sobbing again. When the mother returned 
and chided her, the child said : "O, mother, I 
don't want Happy, and I don't want God — I 
want someone with a skin face." 
We are all very much like the child. In our 
loneliness and heart hunger, and in our sor- 
row and suffering, even Christ in his spiritual 
presence does not meet all our need. We crave 
the human touch, the human voice, the human 
love. Nothing else will quite make real to us 
even the divine gentleness and love. And it is 
one of the condescensions of grace that usually 
the Master reveals himself to us in a friend, 
comes to us incarnated in a human life. Thus 
it comes that he sends us out to represent him. 
We are to be hands and face and voice and 
[172] 



heart to him. He says, "As the Father hath 
sent me, so send I you." 

If we would understand what our mission is, 
we have but to learn what the mission of Christ 
was. Think of the personal influence of his 
life among men. He went about doing good, 
not merely by his works of wonder, as when he 
healed the sick, opened the eyes of the blind, 
and wrought other miracles, but by a ministry 
of common kindness, helpfulness, sympathy, 
cheer, encouragement, and inspiration. Every 
one who met him carried away a blessing from 
his presence. 

He is not here now to continue such a minis- 
try, but he sends us to do it. By the coffin 
of a young Christian girl a bosom friend 
said: "Everywhere she went, flowers blos- 
somed in her path, and the air was sweeter 
when she had passed through a room." This 
should be true of all Christ's friends. If he 
sends us we must expect to carry on the minis- 
try which he began. 

Christ was sent to this world, also, to bring love 

into it. Of course there was love in the world 

[ 173 ] 



Ci^e tmon of lotje 



before he came — human love, natural love. 
There was domestic love. There were some 
very sacred friendships among men. But 
Christ came to bring divine love to this earth. 
He not only told men how they should love, 
but he lived out this love in his own life. He 
showed such patience, such gentleness, such 
thoughtfulness, such abandonment of self, 
such interest in others, as the world had never 
seen before. At last his heart broke on the 
cross in loving the unworthy and in his desire 
to save them. 

This was Christ's mission. "So send I you" 
means that our mission is the same — not mere- 
ly to talk love, but to live it. It is this love 
that the world needs to bless it and save it. It 
is this love that Christians need to make their 
lives what the Master wants them to be, and 
to give them influence among men. 
There was an artist who had painted a great 
picture. People admired it and praised it, and 
yet to all who saw it it seemed to want some- 
thing to make it perfect. Its tone was not 
rich. It lacked warmth a,nd life. The artist 
[174] 



^ent 

was conscious of some missing feature in his 
picture and studied long to find out what it 
was. At length he took his brush and put on 
his canvas a slight touch of red. That 
changed everything. 

Much of our Christian life seems also to lack 
something to bring it up to what it should be. 
It may have in it much that is beautiful. It 
is blameless in its moralities. It is active in 
benevolences. It is full of kindness to the poor. 
It is faithful in its religious duties. Yet it 
needs something to bring it up to the ideal 
which the Master set for his friends. It needs 
more love. We must get more of the red of 
Christ's heart into our lives, into our serving 
of others. 

We are conscious of not living as Christ lived, 
and as he wants us to live. Here and there 
some saintly Christian shows us in humility, 
meekness, patience, and self-denial, in the spirit 
of helping and serving, a vision of love as 
Christ lived it out in his life. But we must 
confess that our Christian life as a rule needs a 
touch of red to give the picture the warmth 
[ 175 ] 



Cl^e lejsjson of toU 



and glow it must have if it would realize the 
Master's ideal. 

It is to show this divine love that we are sent 
from God — ^to show it in our own lives, not 
merely to preach it. This is the evangel that 
will save the world and convert the wilderness 
into a garden of roses. 

Christ came to lift men up to a higher, truer, 
nobler life. This is our mission, too. The 
best way to help others is not by trying to 
build embankments about them to protect them 
from temptation, but rather by putting into 
their hearts the strength and heavenliness 
which shall lift them above the power of evil, 
and make them overcomers by the force of the 
divine life in them. 

During a great flood in the Mississippi, which 
threatened the destruction of the city of New 
Orleans, two men stood on the levee, watching 
the rising waters. One asked the other, "If 
you had the strength and the money to use at 
will, what would you do for our city?" Not 
having thought of the matter in this definite 
way, the gentleman referred the question back 
[176] 



to his friend. "What would you do?'' "I 
would build these dykes so wide and so high," 
he answered, "that no flood could ever endan- 
ger the city again. That would be the finest 
thing any man could do for New Orleans." 
The other thought a moment and then said, 
"I would not do that. If I were able, I would 
get my arms beneath the city, and lift it so 
high that no flood could ever endanger it 
again." 

Christ was sent not to build sheltering walls 
round men, to shut off^ danger from them — 
for then they never could grow strong — but 
to put into their hearts new life, new courage, 
new hope, new strength, so as to lift them be- 
yond the reach of the world's evil. That is the 
best, too, that we can do for others. We can- 
not destroy sin nor shut it away by dykes so 
that it will no more assail, but we can help to 
make men whom sin cannot reach. 
We are sent to continue in this world the work 
which Christ began to do. If we fail to do our 
part, there will be a blank instead of Christian 
work well done. Christ has made himself de- 
[177] 



Ci^e tmon of toU 



pendent upon us. The vine bears no fruit it- 
self — the fruit must come on the branches. If 
the branches then fail in fruitfulness, the vine 
has failed. If we realize that we are sent 
from Christ to every new duty, to every home 
that needs us, it will put a new meaning into 
all our life. We will go forth each morning, 
sent by the Master, for the day's tasks, and 
will hasten to finish them well before the day 

is done. 

" The time is short ! 
If thou wouldst work for God, it must he now; 
If thou wouldst win the garland for thy hrowt 

Redeem the time, 

'^ Shake off earthUs sloth ! 
Go forth with staff in hand while yet 'tis day ; 
/Set out with girded loins upon the way, 

Up ! linger not ! 

" Fold not thy hands ! 
What has the pilgrim of the cross and crown 
To do with luxury or couch of down f 

On, pilgrim, on ! " 



[178] 



dPlaDDeneti to ct5laliDen 



[179] 



stand in the sunshine sweet 

And treasure every ray^ 
Nor seek with stubborn feet 

The darlisome way. 

Have courage I Keep good cheer ! 

Our longest time is brief. 
To those who hold you dear 

Bring no more grief. 

But cherish blisses small, 

Grateful for least delight 
That to your lot dothfall^ 

However slight. 

And lo ! all hearts will bring 
Love^ to make glad your days : 

Blessings untold will spring 
About your ways. 

— Celia Thaxter. 



[180] 



CHAPTER FIFTEENTH 

(tBflatiDenet) to (BlaDDen 




ERHAPS we do not think 
often enough of the re- 
sponsibility of joy. When 
God makes us glad the 
gladness is not to end with 
ourselves — we are to pass 
it on. The Lord said two things to Abraham : 
"I will bless thee" and "Be thou a blessing." 
The blessing was not merely for Abraham's 
own sake, nor was it to terminate in him. He 
was the custodian of this gift of God, that he 
in turn might give its benefits to others. It is 
told of Thoreau, that when he had cut wood 
and built a fire and warmed himself, he would 
call himself before the bar of conscience and 
require himself to answer the question, "What 
did you do while you were warm?" Not many 
of us think that being warmed by the fire 
which our own hands have built involves any 
responsibility, but Thoreau was right. The 
[ 181 ] 



Ci^e tt^^on of toU 



comfort he had received from the heat was not 
his to keep all to himself ; it ought to make his 
life mean more to others, and he must give ac- 
count for it. 

So we may ask ourselves the question, after 
receiving any favor or blessing from God, 
"What did you do when you were blessed?" 
When we have experienced any pure, sweet 
joy, we need to put this question to ourselves, 
"What enrichment of life did you receive from 
your joy? What new, sweet song did you 
learn to sing when you were happy? What 
benedictions of cheer did jo\i pass to others 
when your heart was glad?" 
For one thing, we ought to be better when God 
has given us joy. The joy should add to the 
charm and power of our personality, the 
strength and beauty and depth of our charac- 
ter. If we are not richer-hearted after God 
has given us some new, sweet gladness, we have 
failed to receive his gift aright or to get from 
it what he meant us to get. Whenever we have 
a day of radiant joy or sweet peace or blessed 
vision, and are not better therefor, we have 
[182] 



(IDilaDtieneD to cBlaDUen 

missed the real object of the blessing which 
God intended us to get. Our mountain-top 
days are not merely experiences to be enjoyed 
by us ; the radiance should become part of our 
life thereafter, and the light should shine from 
us upon others. The object of living is not 
merely to be happy ourselves, but to make oth- 
ers happy ; not only to have blessings, but to 
grow into lives of deeper, sweeter blessedness. 
One writes of a day of rare beauty : 

Into our lives— a rose amid the thorns, 

A star in night — there came one perfect day^ 
Framed all in sunshine, lit with light of love. 
And compassed round with blessing evWy way. 
Hush ! let us keep it, sweet, 
By God's own grace — complete. 

Now, though the shadows gather round our path ; 
Now, though the darkness rise and hide the 
light ; 
Now, though we never reap life's aftermath^ 
Nor ever touch again so fair a height ; 
Now, let come what may, 
We know one perfect day, 

Sweet, looking up^ we know that pain must rise. 
And strife, to mar that day's most perfect 
peace ; 

[183] 



Ci^e tt^^on of iLobe 



But, looking farther, in God^s light of love 
We see the land where all the discords cease ; 
And where, God grant, we may 
Relive that perfect day. 

But besides being enriched ourselves by the 
blessings that God sends to us, besides getting 
new faith and hope and joy from the glimpses 
of heavenly beauty God gives to us along 
the way, these experiences should fit us to be 
more largely helpful to others. It goes with- 
out saying that our faces should show it. 
Not many of the people one meets have really 
joyous faces. Too many show traces of care 
and discontent. But if we have the joy of 
Christ in our hearts it ought to shine out. This 
is one of the ways we may let our light shine 
before men. We should remember that we are 
responsible for what our faces say to people. 
We have no right to show in our features 
doubt, fear, discontent, unhappiness, fretful- 
ness, bitterness. We are not witnessing wor- 
thily for Christ unless we are witnessing in 
our faces to the joy and blessing of his love. 
Professor Drummond says: "The machinery 
[184] 



<5laDticneD to (BlaDDen 

of the kingdom is very simple and very silent, 
and the most silent parts do most; and we all 
believe so little in the medicines of Christ that 
we do not know what ripples of healing are set 
in motion when we simply smile on one an- 
other.'^ 

Thackeray also says that the world is a look- 
ing-glass which reflects our looks, whether they 
be sweet or sour. Joy in our faces, breaking 
into smiles, starts smiles on other faces. There 
is many a face which is a blessed evangel be- 
cause of the love, peace, and joy which illu- 
mine it. When we sit for our picture the pho- 
tographer says, "Now look pleasant." That 
is well. We cannot get a picture we will care 
for our friends to see unless we wear a face 
that is bright, cheerful, and sunny when we 
are sitting before the camera. Of course we 
want a pleasant face in a photograph. But 
we have no right to wear an unhappy or a 
clouded face anywhere. Wherever we go, if 
we know the love of Christ, there is a voice bid- 
ding us look pleasant. We represent Christ, 
and Christ's face was always a benediction. 
[185] 



Ci^e JLe^jsott of iLotje 



He never made any one's burden heavier, or 
any one's heart sadder, by a gloomy face. 
Our faces should shine with the joy of Christ 
that is in our hearts. 

But the face is not all. The mind of Christ 
should also inspire in us a personal ministry 
of kindness. When we have been warmed by 
our fire of lovcj we should shed the warmth on 
others, not only in happy faces, but also in a 
ministry of thoughtfulness and helpfulness 
which may bless many. Love is always kind, 
and nothing is more worth while than kindness. 
Nothing else does more to brighten the world 
and sweeten other lives. 

Robert Louis Stevenson wrote in a letter: 
"It is the history of our kindnesses that alone 
makes the world tolerable. If it were not for 
that, for the effect of kind words, kind looks, 
kind letters, multiplying, spreading, making 
one happy through another, and bringing 
forth benefits, some thirty, some fifty, some 
a thousandfold, I should be tempted to think 
our life a practical jest in the worst possible 
spirit." 

[ 186 ] 



dBilaiJDeneD to ct^laDUen 

Kindnesses are the small coins of love. We 
should always be ready to scatter these bright 
coins wherever we go. Kindnesses are usually 
little things that we do as we go along the 
way. 

* * They are little^ simple things to do — 
To sweep a room, to hake a loaf of hready 

Kiss a hurt finger, tie a baby's shoe, 

To mend a crying schoolboy's broken sled, 

' * Such little, simple things ! But they above 
Who on our little world attendant wait, 

And joyful wait, note only if through love 
The deed he done, to count the work as great'* 

We do not know the value of these little acts 
or their far-reaching influence. In the para- 
ble we are told how a mustard seed grew into 
a tree, amid whose branches the birds perched 
and sang. It is said that the fuchsia was first 
introduced into England by a sailor boy, who 
brought a single plant from some foreign 
country as a present for his mother. She put 
it in her modest window, and it became an at- 
traction to all who passed by. From that little 
plant came all the fuchsias in England. The 
[187] 



Ci^e iLe00on of lotie 



boy did not know when, in loving thought for 
his mother, he carried home the httle plant, 
what a beautiful thing he was doing, what a 
ministry of good he was starting, how widely 
the influence of his simple thought of love 
would reach. We never know when we do any 
smallest thing in love for Christ what the end 
of it will be, what a harvest of good will come 
from it. 

It is a beautiful thing to plant a flower which 
may grow and be the beginning of a lovely 
garden which shall brighten one little spot in 
the desert. That is worth while. It is worth 
while to put a bit of beauty into a dreary spot 
to brighten it. It is worth while to plant a 
few flowers where no flowers had bloomed be- 
fore. It is a beautiful thing to change a spot 
of desert into a garden. It is still more worth 
while to get love into a heart in which only sel- 
fishness and hate dwelt before. It is best of 
all to get Christ admitted where he has not 
been received before. That is the truest and 
best ministry. 



[188] 



Ci^e mntxmt^^ of Cl^t^tjsit 



[189] 



" Spirit of infinite kindness^ 

And gentleness passing all speech ! 
Forgive when we miss in our blindness 

The comforting Hand thou dost reach. 
Thou sendest the Spring on thine errand 

To soften the grief of the world ; 
For MS is the calm of the mountain^ 

For us is the roseleaf uncurled ! " 



[190] 



CHAPTER SIXTEENTH 




ENTLEXESS is not weak- 
ness. There are men who 
are gentle — s^'mpathetic, 
kmd, tender, yet who are 
not strong. But that is 
not the kind of manliness 
we admire. The true man is always strong. 
Tourists sometimes find high up on the Alps, 
on some bald crag, on the edge of the eternal 
snows, a sweet, lovely flower growing. That 
is gentleness — the mighty rock, immovable, 
unchanging, and on it growing the tender, 
fragrant bloom. Gentleness is essential to 
complete manliness, but gentleness is beautiful 
only when combined with strength. 
Christ is gentle in dealing with sufiPerers. Skill 
in giving comfort is very rare. Many people 
are sure to speak the wrong word when they sit 
down beside those who are in pain or trouble. 
Job's friends were "miserable comforters." 
[191] 



Ci^e iLejSjson of note 



They tried to make Job believe that he had 
displeased God, and that this was why so much 
evil had come upon him. Many good people 
think that when they sit beside a sufferer or a 
mourner, they must talk about the trouble, en- 
tering into all its details, and dwelling upon 
all that makes it painful and hard to endure. 
But the truest comforter is not the one who 
seems to sympathize the most deeply, going 
down into the depths with him who is in grief, 
but the one who, sympathizing with the suf- 
ferer, yet brings cheer and uplift, sets a vision 
of Christ before the mourning eyes, and sings 
of peace and hope. 

It is thus that Christ deals with pain and sor- 
row. He does not seek to take away the bur- 
den — rather, he would make us brave and 
strong to bear it. One writes of an invalid 
lady who had a little locket in which were five 
dates written in red ink. "Those are the black- 
letter, not the red-letter, days of my life," she 
said to her friend. "The first is the date of 
mother's death, and O, how I rebelled, though 
I was only a girl in my teens. The second, 
[192] 



Ci^e (5mtlmt^^ of €f^vi^t 

three years later, is the date of my father's 
leaving us, and again I rebelled. The third 
marks the time of my husband's going, and 
still I murmured and struggled. The fourth 
is the date of the taking of my only darling, 
a sweet little fellow of five, and this time I al- 
most cursed my heavenly Father, for now all 
my loved ones were gone and I was left alone. 
All the while I was not a Christian — indeed, I 
had grown bitter and hard. I thought God 
was punishing me. Now I see that he was not 
punishing, but educating me by a strange 
discipline. But I want you to look at the last 
date," the woman continued. It read "March 
3, 1898." She said, "That was the day I 
gave my heart to the Saviour. You notice 
there were twenty-six years between the first 
date and the last — twenty-six years of fruit- 
less rebellion. It took me twenty-six years to 
learn to say, ^Thy will be done.' " 
This is a beautiful illustration of Christ's gen- 
tle way of dealing with those who sufi^er. The 
gentleness did not appear, however, at first, 
because the sufferer did not submit to the Mas- 
[193] 



Ci^e tmon of JLoije 



ter. While the struggle was continued there 
was no peace, no joy, no revealing of love. 
Resistance only made the darkness seem deeper, 
the trials harder to endure, the cup more bit- 
ter. At last the sufferer yielded and crept into 
the Master's bosom. Then joy came. Who 
will say the Master was not gentle in all his 
dealing with that life those six and twenty 
years ? 

Christ is very gentle also with those who have 
sinned and are trying to begin again. He has 
no tolerance with sin, but is infinitely patient 
with the sinner. There is a story of an incor- 
rigible soldier who had been punished so often 
for so many offences, without avail, that his 
commanding officer despaired of the man's 
amendment. Again he was under arrest and 
the officer spoke hopelessly of him, asking 
what more could be done to save him from 
his own undoing. A fellow-officer suggested, 
"Try forgiving him." The man was brought 
in and asked what he had to say for himself. 
He replied: "Nothing, except that I'm very 
sorry." "Well," said the officer, "we have de- 
[194] 



cided to forgive you." The man stood dazed 
for a moment, and then burst into tears, sa- 
luted, and went out to become the best and 
bravest soldier in the command. Gentleness 
had saved him. 

That is the way Christ deals with the penitent. 
He saves by forgiving. He loves unto the ut- 
termost. His grace is inexhaustible. How- 
ever often we fail, when we come back and 
ask to try again, he welcomes us and gives us 
another chance. This is our hope — if he were 
not thus gentle with us, we should never get 
home. 

Christ is very gentle with us also in our serv- 
ing of him. We sometimes hear it said, when 
the bareness and poverty of certain people's 
homes are spoken of, that "the one half do 
not know how the other half live." That 
is very true and thinking of this "other half" 
ought to give those who live in comfort 
Christly sympathy with those who live in want 
and poverty. But the same distinction exists 
among Christians, between those who live in 
a happy religious environment and those who 
[195] 



€i^e lejsjson of lolje 



must follow Christ with almost nothing in 
their condition or circumstances to encourage 
or help them. 

Those with all the refinements and inspira- 
tions of the best Christian culture about them 
have little conception of the disadvantages 
of others who are following Christ with- 
out any of this help, in the face of most 
uncongenial surroundings. What kind of 
Christians would we be, and how beautifully 
would we live, if we were in their circum- 
stances ? 

In a railroad accident a young fireman stood 
manfully at his post and was fatally hurt. 
Everything was done for him that kindness 
could do. A minister spoke to him of the love 
of Christ. 

"Yes," he gasped, "I do believe in Christ. But 
God knows I've had to work so hard, such long 
hours, and have been so tired at night that I 
have had no chance to pray much or to go to 
church." 

His brother stood by and broke in. "But he's 

been a good boy. He worked night and day 

[196] 



to support our crippled mother — and me, 
when I was laid up for a year." 
"Yes, sir, and he took care of me," said a big 
baggageman, "when I had smallpox and no- 
body would come near me." 
"And more than once," added another young 
man, "he's taken my run, after coming in from 
his own, when I was too sick to go out." 
The poor fireman smiled on his friends — a 
smile of gratitude. He had never heard much 
praise. 

"God will not keep him out of heaven — ^will 
he.?" said his brother, tenderly. 
The minister bent over the dying boy and 
said, reverently and with deep feeling: "The 
peace of God, the peace of Christ, be upon 
you. You have done what you could." 
Can we doubt the gentleness of Christ in such 
a case ? He is infinitely patient with all whose 
lot is hard. He never exacts more of us than 
we can do. He is never unreasonable. He 
knows when the burdens are too heavy for us. 
Once he, "being wearied with his journey, sat 
thus by the well" in his exhaustion. He sym- 
[197] 



Ci^e ^mon of tou 

pathizes with those who are weary and helps 
them. 

There is a picture which shows a girl at 
her spinning-wheel. The hour is late — mid- 
night, as a clock in the bare room shows — and 
the spinner, exhausted by her long toil to earn 
enough to support her little household, has 
fallen asleep beside the wheel. And an angel 
is finishing her work. How gentle our Task- 
master is ! How sweet it is to come to him at 
the close of the long days and rest at his feet ! 

^*My heart is tired^ so tired to-night^ — 

How endless seems the strife I 
Bay after day the restlessness 

Of all this weary life! 
I come to lay the burden down 

That so oppresseth me, 
And shutting all the world without^ 

To spend an hour with thee, 
Dear Lord, 

To spend an hour with thee, 

^* I would forget a little while 
The bitterness of fears, 
The anxious thoughts that crowd my life, 
The buried hopes of years ; 
[198] 



ci^e (^mtlmm of Ci^tfjst 

Forget that mortals' weary toil 
My patient care must he. 

A tired child I come to-night^ 
To spend an hour with thee, 
Bear Lord, 

One little hour with thee, ' ' 



[199] 



Wouin ^uv Wav be iBtttm 



[201] 



" Being perplexed, I say^ 
Lord^ make it right ! 

Night is as day to thee, 
Darkness as light. 

I am afraid to touch things 

That involve so much^ 

My trembling hand may shake^ 

My skilless hand may break ; 

Thine can make no mistake. 

" Being in doubt ^ I say,, 
Lord^i make it plain! 
Which is the true,, safe way ? 

Which would be vain ? 
I am not wise to know,. 
Nor sure of port to go ; 
My blind eyes cannot see 
What is so plain to thee; 
Lord,, make it clear to me.^* 



[202] 



CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH 




E often think we could do 
better If things were in 
our hands. We think we 
could direct our affairs so 
as to get more happiness 
and greater good out of 
life. Sometimes it seems to us that many 
things go wrong and that the consequences 
to us are very calamitous. It must be con- 
fessed that there is in the world a great 
deal of discontent with the ways of Providence. 
Not many people seem to be quite satisfied 
with their circumstances, and there are many 
who think that the divine dealings with them 
are not in accordance with that love which they 
are told directs the affairs of all God's chil- 
dren. 

Would it be better if we had the direction of 
our own affairs ? So, sometimes we are tempt- 
ed to think. If it were permitted to us to do 
[203] 



Ci^e tt^mx of lotje 



this, no doubt there would be a great change 
in the method of what we now call Providence, 
We would at once eliminate all that is pain- 
ful and unpleasant in our lot. We would have 
only prosperities, with no adversities, only 
joys, with no sorrows. We would exclude 
pain from our life and all trouble. The days 
would all be sunny, with blue skies and no 
clouds or storms. The paths would all be 
mossy and strewn with flowers, without thorns 
or any rough places. 

All this has a very pleasing aspect for us 
when we think of it lightly and in a superficial 
way. Would not that be better than as we 
have it now.? Would we not be happier, and 
would not life mean more to us in blessing and 
good, if we could direct our own affairs, and 
leave out the painful, the bitter, the adverse, 
and the sorrowful? So most of us would 
probably say at first, before we have thought 
of the question deeply and looked on to the 
end. But really the greatest misfortune that 
could come to us in this world would be to have 
the direction of the aff^airs and the shaping of 
[204] 



I^oulti fSDm Wav lie I3etter? 

the experiences of our lives put into our own 
hands. We have no wisdom to know what is 
best for ourselves. To-day is not all of life — 
there is a long future, perhaps many years in 
this world, and then immortality hereafter. 
What would give us greatest pleasure to-day 
might work us harm in days to come. Present 
gratification might cost us untold loss and 
hurt in the future. 

Our wants and our real needs are not always 
the same. We want pleasure, plenty, pros- 
perity — perhaps we need pain, self-denial, the 
giving up of things that we greatly prize. 
We shrink from suffering, from sacrifice, 
from struggle — perhaps these are the very 
experiences which will do the most for us, 
which will bring out in us the best possibilities 
of our natures, which will fit us for the largest 
service to God and man. 

We should alwaj'^s remember that the object 
of living here is not merely to have present 
comfort, to get along with the least trouble, 
to gather the most we can of the world's treas- 
ures, to win the brightest fame. We are here 
[205] 



m^t tmon of iLoije 



to grow into the beauty of Christ and to do 
the portion of God's will that belongs to us. 
We cannot therefore work out our own course, 
for we do not know what the divine purpose 
for us is. We cannot choose our own circum- 
stances and experiences, for we do not know 
the pattern set for our lives. 
There is something wonderfully inspiring in 
the thought that God has a plan and a purpose 
for our lives, for each life. We do not come 
drifting into this world and do not drift 
through it like waifs on the ocean. We are 
sent from God, each one of us with a divine 
thought for his life — something God wants 
us to do, some place he wants us to fill. All 
through our lives we are in the hands of God, 
who chooses our place and orders our circum- 
stances and is ready to make all things work 
together for our good. Our part in all this 
is the acceptance of God's will for our lives as 
that will is made known to us day by day. If 
we thus acquiesce in the divine way for us we 
shall fulfil the divine purpose. 
It is the highest honor that could be conferred 
[ 206 ] 



^oulD f^m Wav be I5ettet? 

upon us to occupy such a place in the thought 
of God. We cannot doubt that his way for 
us is better than ours, since he is infinitely wiser 
than we are, and loves us so. It may be pain- 
ful and hard, but in the pain and the hardness 
there is blessing. 

One is called apart from active life and shut 
up in a sick-room. It seems to him that his 
time is being wasted. There are many things 
that need to be done and which he might have 
done while lying there with folded hands in 
his darkened room. People to whom his life 
is a continual blessing miss him when he comes 
not. He seems in his illness to be leaving a 
great blank where there ought to have been 
many good deeds and gentle ministries. Be- 
sides this loss to others and to the work of the 
world, sickness is most costly to the sick man 
himself. Its money cost is great. Then its 
burden of suffering is great. 
What is there to compensate for all this loss 
and cost and to make the long illness really a 
blessing ? Is there anything ? If we were di- 
recting the affairs of our own lives we would 
[207] 



Cl^e tmon of iLoiie 



not put the sickness in ; is it possible that God's 
way is better than ours would have been ? 
Of course we may not claim to know all the 
reasons there are in the divine mind for the 
pains and sufferings that come into our lives, 
or what God's design for us in these trials is. 
Without discovering any reasons at all, how- 
ever, we may still trust God, who loves us with 
an infinite love and whose wisdom also is in- 
finite. But we can think of some ways in 
which it is possible for blessing and good to 
come out of a sick-room experience. 
The Master has other work for us besides what 
we do in our common occupations. We have 
other lessons to learn besides those we get from 
books and friends and current events, and 
through life's ordinary experiences. There is 
a work to be done in us, in our own hearts and 
lives, which is even more important than any- 
thing assigned to us in the scheme of the 
world's activities. There are lessons which we 
can learn much better in the quiet, shaded 
sick-room than outside, in the glare of the 
streets and amid the clamor of earth's strifes. 
[ 208 ] 



^oulD €>ut: Wav be OBettet? 

Our shut-in days need never be lost days. 
Whatever they may cost us in money or in 
suffering, we need not be poorer when they are 
over than if we had been busy all the while at 
the world's tasks. 

Or take sorrow. We would not have it in our 
plan if we shaped our own lives. It seems 
only calamitous. It takes away our brightest 
joys and breaks our sweetest happiness. Can 
we think of any way in which the work of sor- 
row may leave us better or richer than if it 
had not come to us ? We know well that there 
are blessings we never can reach unless we are 
willing to pass to them through pain and 
grief. To-day it may seem that it would be 
better if we could miss life's sorrows and have 
only joys ; but when we get home we shall see 
that the best days of all our years have been 
the days we thought the saddest and found it 
the hardest to pass through. Some time we 
shall know that God has made no mistake in 
anything he has done for us, however he may 
have broken into our plans and spoiled our 
pleasant dreams. 

[209] 



Ci^e tt^^on of lotje 



It would not be better if we could have our 
own way. When we thought we were choos- 
ing wisely, we should find we had lost a 
heavenly good for some trinket of earth which 
we could keep only for a day. When we 
thought the path we were taking would lead 
to lasting good, we should discover that it 
ended only in darkness and sorrow. It should 
be reason for measureless gratitude that our 
lives are not in our own poor feeble hands, but 
in the hands of our Father. 

* * I am glad to think 
I am not bound to make the world go right, 
But only to discover and to do, 
With cheerful hearty the work that Gfod appoints. 

I will trust in him, 
That he can hold his own ; and I will take 
His will, above the work he sendeth me, 
To be my chief est good, " 

We need only to accept God's way and go as 
he leads, and at the end we shall find that in 
not the smallest matter have we ever been un- 
wisely led but that at every step we have been 
brought to some good. We do not know what 
[210] 



Wonin ^m Wav be isettet? 

the future, even the nearest hour of the future, 
may have for us, but we know that we cannot 
drift beyond our Father's love and care, and 
that all that may seem dark or disastrous will 
reveal joy and blessing at the end. 

Yesterday, when I said, ** Thy will be done,'' 
I knew not what that will of thine would be. 

What clouds would gather black across my sun. 
What storm and desolation waited me ; 

I knew thy love would give me what was best, 

And I am glad I could not know the rest, 

** Thy will be done,^' I say, and to the scroll 
Of unread years consenting set my name ; 

Day after day their pages will unroll 
In shining words that prove thy love the same, 

Until my years are gathered into one 

Eternal, sanctified, 

** Thy will be done.'^^ 



[211] 



3In ti^e ifatl^et:'^ l$anH 



[213] 



The great round world is full of things^ 
Not only armies and realms and kings^ 

And lands and seas^ and forests tall^ 
But little things so small to see^ 
So many that they cannot counted he^ 

Yet^ wonderful thought^ the Lord knows all, 

Oh^ wonderful thought^ that he can know all^ 
Not only the mighty hut the small ; 

Not only the Alp but each flake of its snows ! 
And he pities and pardons^ and loves so well^ 
That you and I in the thought may dwell, 

And not he afraid^ though we know he knows. 

— Susan Coolidge. 



[214] 



CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH 

31n ti^e fati^et'js ^anDjj 




HERE is infinite comfort 
in the truth of the divine 
Fatherhood. The name 
Father carries in it a 
whole theology of joy and 
peace. If we accept it as 
a true revealing of the heart of God, we need 
not go farther in our quest after a definition 
of the divine Being, and an explanation of his 
relation to us and his interest in us. If he is 
indeed our Father, that is all we need to know. 
We require no proof that God loves us — if he 
is our Father that suflices. We need not ask 
for reasons when he seems to be dealing 
strangely with us — whatever the form of the 
providences may be, we know that love is the 
guiding principle and the great motive of all 
that he does. If he is our Father we do not 
need to be disturbed by life's events, however 
[215] 



Ci^e tmon of lotje 



they may break into our plans and seem to 
work us hurt. 

It was Jesus Christ who revealed this truth of 
the divine Fatherhood. If he had taught the 
world nothing else, this alone would have made 
him the most wonderful Teacher that ever 
spoke from God to man. When he taught us 
to say "Our Father," he brought God down 
close to us and opened the way for us to his 
heart of infinite love. 

Life has its strange experiences for all of us 
some time. There come days when human rea- 
son can find nothing beautiful or good in what 
we are passing through. Everything seems 
destructive. We can see no love in the dark 
enigma. In such hours it gives us unmeasura- 
ble comfort to be able to say : "It is my Father, 
and he loves me and is making no mistake.'' 
It was this confidence that sustained Christ 
himself in his darkest moments on the cross. 
In the inexplicable mystery of his suffering, 
when he could not see the face of his Father 
and felt as if he were even forsaken by him, 
his faith found assurance in what he knew of 
[216] 



91n ti^e !fatl)et'0 f anti^ 

the divine love. It was still ^'My God, my 
God." The anchor held, and in a few mo- 
ments more it was light again, and he said: 
"Father, into thy hands I commend my 
spirit.'' 

The Master gives us the lesson for ourselves 
when he assures us that his Father has in his 
hands the care of our lives. "My Father is 
the husbandman," he said to his disciples. 
The husbandman has entire charge of the 
vines. He understands them and knows how 
to care for them. He plants them where they 
will grow the best, looks after their culture, 
prunes them, and does for them whatever 
needs to be done. They are not left to grow 
without intelligent care. 

When Jesus said "My Father is the husband- 
man," he meant to tell his disciples that the 
care of their lives is in the hands of God, whose 
name is love. It is not intrusted to a being of 
only limited intelligence and only finite power 
and love. Still less is it chance that directs 
the events and shapes the circumstances of our 
days. That is what Atheism would have us 
[217] 



Cl^e lejsjson of lote 



believe. "There is no God/' it says to us. 
"Things happen. There is no one at the cen- 
tre of all things who thinks about you. There 
is no hand but the iron hand of law working 
in human affairs. There is no love, no heart, 
anywhere in the vast spaces, feeling, caring; 
no mind, planning good. The great machine 
of the universe grinds on, with resistless, re- 
lentless power, and what comes into your life 
comes as the result of this inflexible, undirect- 
ed, loveless grinding." 

There is small comfort in this teaching. It 
never can give confidence and peace to any 
heart in the time of trouble. It suggests 
no comfort when all things appear to be 
against us. 

But that is not what Jesus Christ teaches. 
The theory of the universe which he gives us 
is that this is our Father's world. Not only 
did he create it, adorning it with beauty and 
fitting it to be the home of his children, but he 
cares for it with constant, tender care. He has 
not left the world he made to get along as best 
it may without any thought from him. Re- 
[218] 



9In ti^e ifati^er'jci f anDjs 

ferring to the affairs of providence, Jesus 
says: "My Father worketh hitherto, and I 
work." There is no chance — all things are 
under control of intelligence and love. The 
universe is no mere loveless machine which 
grinds out our destiny for us. There is a 
great Heart of everlasting love at the centre 
of all things. We have nothing to do with 
the vast machinery — it is ours Only to do God's 
will and fill our little place. 
We are not required to make all things work 
out for good. We do not have to bring 
about the beneficent results. Our part is sim- 
ply to learn what God's will for us is, what 
our duty is, and then do that with cheerful 
heart. This is our Father's world, and if we 
do our own little part faithfully and well, we 
need give no thought to the outcome. 
"My Father is the husbandman." That is, 
when we are taken up and transplanted, it is 
the Father who does it. When the pruning- 
knife cuts away beautiful things that we so 
much wanted to keep, the Father does it. It 
is not chance that sometimes uproots our life 
[219] 



Ci^e JLe00on of tou 



so ruthlessly. Nor is it cruelty that brings 
suffering and pain to us. "How can I believe 
that God loves me, while he is afflicting me 
so?" people sometimes say. The answer to the 
question is, "My Father is the husband- 
man." 

In one of Ralph Connor's books* he tells the 
story of Gwen, a wild, undisciplined girl, who 
had been brought up in the free ranch life of 
the far West. She was motherless. She was 
unable to read, and knew nothing of God. 
She had an imperious will which brooked no 
restraint. By a terrible accident she was 
lamed for life. The missionary among the 
cowboys had visited her before her accident 
and had made a little opening into her heart 
for God. After the accident he visited her 
again. Very gently he answered her questions 
and led her on until she saw that God had al- 
lowed her to be hurt, because he loved her and 
wanted to do her good. 
The story of Gwen's canyon is a fine parable 

* The Sky Pilot. By Ralph Connor. The Fleming 
H. Revell Company, N. Y. 

[220] 



91n ti^e mw^ f anDjs 

of spiritual teaching. Gwen loved this can- 
yon and called it her canyon — the great, deep, 
wild gorge which she knew so well, so glorious 
with its life. The minister said to her, in his 
parable, that at first there were no canyons — 
only broad, open prairie. The master of the 
prairie missed his favorite flowers, which would 
not grow on the wind-swept plain. Then he 
called for the lightning and the prairie w^as 
cleft to its heart and groaned in agony over 
its great, gaping wound. But a stream ran 
through the cleft and carried down black 
mould, and the birds brought seeds and strewed 
them in the gorge. By and by the rough rocks 
were decked out with soft mosses and trailing 
vines, and all the nooks were hung with clem- 
atis and columbine, and everywhere the vio- 
lets and wind-flower and maiden-hair grew and 
bloomed until the canyon became the master's 
place for rest and peace and joy. 
With this parable the minister taught his les- 
son. Gwen's canyon was a parable of Gwen's 
life. The rending of the level prairie by the 
terrific lightning seemed to be the utter ruin 
[221 ] 



Ci^e tmon of lote 



of the land. The great, unsightly cleft, with 
its dark chasm and bare, jagged rocks, gave 
small promise of anything lovely. But in the 
end the yawning gorge became a place of mar- 
vellous beauty. It was the same with the girl's 
life. With magniiScent powers there was only 
untamable wilfulness. She would yield to 
neither God nor man. The lovely flowers of 
the Spirit would not grow in her life. Then 
came the terrible accident which crushed her 
and broke her strength and shut her away 
from all activity. Then the Master came, and 
good seeds were sown in the clefts, and the 
dark canyon bloomed with the flowers of the 
Spirit. 

We should never forget, when we are called to 
suffer, that it is always in love our Father 
causes us pain. The name Father is the key 
to the meaning of the discipline. We may not 
understand — we need not understand. It is 
enough that it is our Father who has the care 
of our lives. 

We should remember, too, that there are bless- 
ings which can come to us only in sorrow, les- 
[222] 



91n ti^e fatl^et'js f anDjs 

sons which can be learned only in pain and suf- 
fering. Even of Jesus it is said that he was 
made perfect through suffering. There were 
qualities in him which could not reach their 
best save in the school of pain. There are in 
all of us possibilities of spiritual loveliness 
and strength and love and helpfulness which 
never can come to their highest development 
save in suffering. If we cannot endure suffer- 
ing we cannot grow to our best. A gentleman 
said : "When my new gardener came to me he 
said he would have nothing to do with these 
vines unless he could cut them down clean to 
the stalk ; and we had no grapes for two years. 
But this is the result," pointing to great clus- 
ters of luscious grapes weighing down the 
vines. 

This is a parable of Christian life. It is not 
required that we shall pray to be permitted to 
suffer. But we may pray to reach the high- 
est possibilities of Christlikeness and the larg- 
est measure of usefulness of which we are 
capable. Then when we find ourselves face to 
face with pain or suffering which we must ac- 
[ 223 ] 



Cl^e tt^^on of JLoU 



cept if our prayer is to be answered, we must 
not shrink from the experience. It is thus, 
alone, in suffering, that we can be made per- 
fect. 

** Only upon some cross of pain or woe 
God's son may lie ; 
Each soul redeemed from self and sin must know 
Its Calvary. 

'* Yet we must crave neither for joy or grief 

Ood chooses best ; 
He only knows our sick souVs best relief 
And gives us resL^' 



[224] 



tiomin^, piotnin^, flDne ^av 



[225] 



"/5 noi this day enough for all our powers 
If its exactions were hut fully met, 
If not one unpaid debt 
Were left to haunt the peace of future hours, 
And sting us with regret f *' 



[226] 



CHAPTER NINETEENTH 




NE of the secrets of happy 
and beautiful hf e is, to live 
one day at a time. If we 
would learn it, it would 
save us from the worry 
that in so many people 
spoils the days, and w^ould add immeasura- 
bly to the value of the work we do. For, 
really, we never have anything to do any day 
but the bit of God's will for that day. If we 
do that well we have absolutely nothing else 
to do. 

Time is given to us in days. It was so from 
the beginning. We need not puzzle ourselves 
trying to understand just what the "day" was 
in which God wrought in creating the universe 
— ^we may leave this matter to the scientific 
men and the theologians ; but it is interesting 
to know that each day had its particular ap- 
portionment in the stupendous work. At the 
[227] 



Ci^e tt^^m oC iLotje 



end of each of the creative periods we read, 
"There was evening and there was morning, 
one day." So it has been ever since. Time is 
measured to us by days. Each day has its 
particular section of duty, something that be- 
longs in between sunrise and sunset, that can- 
not be done at all if it is not done in its own 
hours. "There was evening and there was 
morning, one day, a second day, a third day." 
This breaking up of time into little daily por- 
tions means a great deal more than we are wont 
to think. For one thing, it illustrates the 
gentleness and goodness of God. It would 
have made life intolerably burdensome if a 
year, instead of a day, had been the unit of 
division. It would have been hard to carry a 
heavy load, to endure a great sorrow, or to 
keep on at a hard duty, for such a long stretch 
of time. How dreary our common task-work 
would be if there were no breaks in it, if we 
had to keep our hand to the plough or our foot 
on the treadle for a whole year! We never 
could go on with our struggles, our battles, 
our suffering, if night did not mercifully settle 
[228] 



down with its darkness and bid us rest and re- 
new our strength. 

We do not understand how great a mercy 
there is for us in the briefness of our short 
days. If they were even twice as long as they 
are, Hfe would be intolerable. Many a time 
when the sun goes down, we feel that we could 
scarcely have gone another step. We should 
have fainted in defeat if the summons to rest 
had not come just when it did. 
Night with its darkness seems to be a blot on 
the whiteness of day. It seems to fall across 
our path as an interruption to our activity, 
compelling us to lay down our work when we 
are in the very midst of it, leaving it only half 
done. It seems to be a waster of precious time, 
eating up half the hours. How much more 
we could accomplish, we sometimes say, if the 
sun did not go down, if we could go on with- 
out pause ! Night throws its heavy veil over 
the lovely things of this world, hiding them 
from our view. Yet night really is no stain on 
the splendor of day, no thief of time, no waster 
of golden hours, no obscurer of beauty. 
[229] 



Ci^e lessjson of JLotje 



It reveals as much beauty as it hides, for no 
sooner has the sun set, leaving earth's splendor 
of landscape, garden, and forest in gloom, 
than there bursts upon our vision the other 
splendor of the sky filled with glorious stars. 
A noble sonnet by Blanco White relates the 
experience of our first parent as he watched 
the sinking of the sun to his setting at the 
close of his first day : 

Bid he not tremble for this lovely frame 

This glorious canopy of light and blue f 
Yet^ 'neath a curtain of translucent dew, 
Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame, 
Hesperus, with the host of heaven, came, 
And lo ! creation widened in man^s view. 
Who could have thought such darkness lay con- 
cealed 
Within thy beams, O sun! or who could find, 
Whilst fly and leaf and insect stood revealed, 
That to such countless orbs thou mad^st us blind f 

When the privilege of work is interrupted, 
God has another blessing — the blessing of 
sleep. One may figure out with mathematical 
certitude that it is a waste of time to spend 
[ 230 ] 



one-third of each day in the idleness of sleep. 
But these hours, which seem to be lost, in 
which we appear to be doing nothing, bring us 
new gifts from God. An old version renders 
the Psalm verse, "He giveth his beloved in 
sleep.'' We lie down with our vitality ex- 
hausted in the toils and struggles of the day. 
Then, while we sleep, God comes to us in the 
silence and stillness, and refills the emptied 
fountains. It is really a new creation that 
takes place in us while we sleep, a miracle of 
renewal and restoration. We die, as it were, 
and are made to live again. 
Thus we get hints of the graciousness of the 
divine thoughtfulness in giving us time in pe- 
riods of little days, which we can easily get 
through with, and not in great j^ears, in which 
we would faint and fall by the way. It makes 
it possible for us to go on through all the 
long years and not to be overwrought, for 
we never have given to us at any one time 
more than we can do between the morning 
and the evening. George Klingle puts It 
well: 

[ 231 ] 



Cl^e JLejSjson of lobe 



God broke our years to hours and days^ 

That hour by hour, and day by day. 

Just going on a little way, 
We might be able all along to keep quite strong. 
Should all the weight of life 
Be laid across our shoulders, and the future rife 
With woe and struggle, meet us face to face 
At just one place, 

We could not go ; 

Our feet would stop ; and so 
God lays a little on us every day. 
And never, I believe, on all the way 

Will burdens bear so deep, 

Or pathways lie so threatening and so steep. 
But we can go, if by God's power 
We only bear the burden of the hour. 

Not only are the days short, so that we can go 
on to eventide with our work or our burden, 
but they are separated as by an impassable 
wall, so that there can be no overflowing of 
one day's care or responsibility into another. 
Night drops down its dark curtain between 
the days, so that we cannot see to-day any- 
thing that is in to-morrow. Our Lord taught 
us that we sin if we let ourselves try to carry 
the load of any day but this one little day, 
[232] 



"Be not anxious for to-morrow," he said, "for 
to-morrow will be anxious for itself. Suffi- 
cient unto the day is the evil thereof." If we 
allow ourselves to borrow anxiety from to- 
morrow, we shall find that we have a greater 
load than we can carry. 
Canon Wilberf orce interprets the lesson well : 

Lordj for to-morrow and its needs, 

I do not pray ; 
Keep me, my Grod,from stain of sin 

Just for to-day. 
Let me both diligently work. 

And duly pray ; 
Let me he kind in word and deed 

Just for to-day. 
Let me he slow to urge my will, 

Prompt to ohey ; 
Help me to mortify my flesh 

Just for to-day. 
Let me no wrong or idle word 

Unthinking say ; 
/Set thou a seal upon my lips 

Just for to-day. 
Lo, for to-morrow and its needs 

I do not pray, 
But keep me, guide me, love me, Lord, 

Just for to-day. 

[233] 



%\)t lejsjson of lobe 



The only true way to live, therefore, is one day 
at a time. This means that we should give all 
our strength to the work of the present day, 
that we should finish each day's tasks by night- 
fall, leaving nothing undone at setting of 
sun that we ought to have done. Then, when 
a new morning dawns we should accept its du- 
ties, the bit of God's will it unrolls for us, and 
do everything well that is given us to do. We 
may be sure, too, that there is something for 
each moment, and that if we waste any portion 
of our day we cannot make it complete. We 
should bring all the energy and all the skill of 
mind and heart and hand to our duty as we 
take it up, doing nothing carelessly or negli- 
gently. Then we can lay our day back into 
God's hand at nightfall with confidence, say- 
ing, "Father, I have finished the work which 
thou gavest me to do to-day." 
But we should never be anxious about either 
yesterday or to-morrow. Yesterday is gone, 
and we never can get it back to change any- 
thing in it. It is idle, therefore, to waste a 
moment of time or a particle of strength f ret- 
[234 ] 



ting over it. To-morrow is not yet ours, and 
we cannot touch its life until it becomes our to- 
day. God means us to put our undivided en- 
ergy into the doing of the present day's work. 
If we do this we shall have quite enough to do 
to fill all the hours and to engage our best 
energy and skill and strength. 
In this way, too, we shall best prepare for to- 
morrow. One day's duty slighted or neglected 
prepares confusion and overburdening for the 
next. The days are all woven together in 
God's plan, each one following the day before 
and fitting into the day coming after it. Each 
takes up the work which the day before 
brought to its feet, and carries it forward to 
deliver it to the one which waits. A marred 
or empty day anywhere spoils the web, losing 
the thread. 

If we learn well the lesson of living just one 
day at a time, without anxiety for either yes- 
terday or to-morrow, we shall have found one 
of the great secrets of Christian peace. That 
is the way God teaches us to live. That is the 
lesson both of the Bible and of nature. If we 
[ 235 ] 



Cl^e lejsison of lolje 



learn it, it will cure us of all anxiety ; it will 
save us from all feverish haste ; it will enable 
us to live sweetly in any experience. 

** One day at a time ! That's all it can he : 
No faster than that is the hardest fate; 
And days have their limits, however we 
Begin them too early and stretch them lateJ* 



[236] 



^vut fvimn^W^ Wi^})t^ 



[237] 



^^ As we meet and touch each day 
The many travellers on our way^ 
Let every such brief contact he 
A glorious,, helpful ministry ,, — 
The contact of the soil and seed,. 
Each giving to the other^s need,, 
Each helping on the other's best,, 
And blessing^ each,, as well as blest^ 



[238] 



CHAPTER TWENTIETH 




AINT PAUL has given us 
many lessons in friendship. 
He himself had a genius 
for friendship, and no one 
can study him in his rela- 
__ tion to his friends without 

finding much that is beautiful enough to be 
followed. In one of his epistles, for example, 
he reveals the nature of his wishes for his 
friends in a very striking sentence. He writes 
that he longs to see them, that he may impart 
unto them some spiritual gift. 
One suggestion from the character of this 
longing is that the truest Christian friendship 
desires, not to receive, but to give. Saint Paul 
wished to see his friends, not to be refreshed, 
encouraged, and strengthened himself, by 
their love, but that he might impart gifts of 
enriching to them. Always the attitude of 
true friendship is the same — the longing to do 
[ 239 ] 



Ci^e JLejSjson of toU 



something for our friend, to be of use to him, 
to be of help to him, rather than the desire to 
get something from him, to be helped by him. 
This is put well in Dr. Babcock's little morn- 
ing prayer : 

O Lord, I pray 

That for this day 
1 may not swerve 

By foot or hand 

From thy command, 
Not to be served, hut to serve. 

This too I pray 

That for this day 
No love of ease 

Nor pride prevent 

My good intent, 
Not to be pleased, but to please. 

And if I may , 

rd have this day 
/Strength from above, 

To set my heart 

In heavenly art, 
Not to be loved, but to love. 

Another suggestion from Saint Paul's long- 
ing is that the very heart of true Christian 
[240] 



friendship is helpfulness. We begin to be like 
Christ only when we begin to desire to do 
others good. The world's ideal is, "Every man 
for himself," but Christ set a new standard 
for his followers. We are to look upon every- 
one we meet with the question in our hearts, 
"What can I do for this man.^^ How can I 
serve him.? In what way can I do him good, 
help him, comfort him, strengthen him.?" We 
are always to hold ourselves ready to show the 
kindness of love to every human being that 
crosses our path. He may not need us — ^but 
then he may, — and if he does we must not fail 
to give him the help he needs. 
We do not know how many of those whom we 
meet any day do need us. There may be none 
of the great crying needs which kindle com- 
passion in all human breasts. We may go for 
years and come upon no one lying wounded by 
the wayside. But there are needs just as real 
as these, and perhaps quite as tragic. There 
are hearts that are discouraged, needing cheer, 
that they faint not. There are people who 
are tempted, wavering, and ready to fall. 
[241 ] 



Ci^e iLejijson of note 



There are those who are carrying a burden 
of sorrow, crying out for comfort. There are 
those who are hungry for love. 
There always are opportunities for helping, 
and the world needs nothing more than men 
and women who are ready to respond to each 
call for love's gentle ministry. A pleasant 
story is told of Wendell Phillips, the great 
orator. He was passionately devoted to his 
invalid wife. One night after he had delivered 
a lecture in a suburban town, his friends urged 
him not to return home till morning. "The 
last train has gone," they said, "and you will 
have to go in a carriage. It will mean twelve 
miles of cold riding through rain and sleet." 
"Ah, yes," he replied, cheerily, "but at the 
end of the ride I shall see Annie Phillips." 
Christianity exalts every good thing of life 
and nothing more than its friendships. The 
ministry to which our Master calls every one 
of us is a ministry of personal helpfulness. It 
is not always easy. It may mean utter for- 
getfulness of self. But the lower its conde- 
scension, the diviner it is. 
[242] 



There is a beautiful story of the boyhood 
of Agassiz. The family lived in Switzerland. 
One day Louis and a younger brother were 
crossing a lake near their home, and came to 
a crack in the ice which the smaller boy could 
not leap over. The older one then laid himself 
down across the crack, making a bridge of his 
body, and his brother climbed over on him. 
There is need all the while for human bridges 
over gaps and yawning crevices, and let no one 
say that this is asking too much even of love. 
We remember that the Master said he was a 
way, a bridge, that he laid his precious life 
across the great impassable chasm between sin 
and heaven, that men might walk over on him, 
from death to life. If it was fit that the Mas- 
ter should make of himself such a bridge, can 
any service we may be called to do in helping 
others be too costly, too humbling? 
The new friendship in which the Master leads 
us is known by its ministry of helpfulness. 
Selfishness is always most undivine. The love 
that heaven inspires serves, and serves unto the 
uttermost. Christ himself had no other errand 
[243] 



Ci^e JLe^^on of loije 



to this world but to help people. He did it in 
the largest way in giving his life. He did it 
continually in countless little and great ways 
along his years. We should go out every 
morning with a longing like this in our hearts : 

" What can I do to-day f 
Not gold, or ease^ or power, or love, to gain, 
Or pleasure gay ; 
But to impart 
Joy to some stricken heart ; 
To send some hea^oen-born rays 
Of hope, some sad, despairing 
Soul to cheer ; 

To lift some weighing doubts ; 
Make truth more clear ; 
Dispel some dawning fear ; 
To lull some pain ; 
Bring to the fold again 
Some lamb astray ; 
To brighten life for someone. 
Now and here 
This let me do to-day,'*'^ 

Saint Paul's longing suggests also that we 
should seek to help our friends in the best and 
highest ways. He wished to impart to them 
some spiritual gift. There are many things 
[244] 



we can do for others. We may help them in 
temporal ways. If they are poor, we may 
pay their rent, or provide fuel for their fires 
or bread for their hunger. But there are bet- 
ter things than these which we can do. No 
doubt sometimes a loaf of bread is better than 
a tract or even a gospel; or, rather, the loaf 
must go first to prepare the way for the tract 
and the gospel. Whatever we do first, how- 
ever, for a friend or a neighbor, we must not 
be content until we have sought to impart to 
him some spiritual gift, some heavenly bless- 
ing. 

Is it this higher thought of friendship that 
most of us put into our conception of what 
belongs to the mission of friendship.^ We' 
should not forget that if we are Christians we 
represent Christ in this world. He would 
reach other lives through us. He would pour 
his grace into other hearts through our hearts. 
In all this world there is no other privilege 
more sacred than that of being a friend to an- 
other person. When God sends us to someone 
in this holy way, we should lift up our hearts 
[ 245 ] 



Ci^e lejsjson of lote 



in reverent and grateful recognition of the 
honor conferred upon us. We should think 
also of the responsibility which this trust puts 
upon us. We stand in Christ's place to the 
life that looks to us in love and confidence and 
waits for the help we are to bring, the comfort 
we are to minister, the blessing we are to im- 
part. One speaks thus to a friend whom God 
had sent : 

" Bod neve?^ loved me in so sweet a way before; 
'Tis he alone who can such blessings send; 
And when his love icould new expression flnd^ 
He brought thee to me, and said, ' Behold a 

friend ! ' " 

But if you are the friend thus sent from God 
to another, think what it will mean to fill the 
sacred place. What are you going to be as 
a friend to the one who looks to you with hun- 
gry heart for strength, for encouragement, 
for inspiration, for help? What have you to 
give that will make the life richer? What 
touches of beauty are you going to put upon 
the soul that is nestling in the shadow of your 
friendship ? 

[246] 



It is very sure that merely worldly ease and 
comfort are not the best things we can seek for 
our friends. It is natural that we should want 
to shield them from hardship, burden-bearing, 
and sorrow. But in the very tenderness of our 
love we may rob them of the best possibilities 
of their lives. When God would bless us most 
largely in a spiritual way, he does not ordi- 
narily give us all ease and luxury. He knows 
that the room must be darkened sometimes if 
we are to learn to sing the new, sweet song, 
and that before we will accept heavenly good 
things it may be necessary that our hands 
shall be emptied of absorbing earthly things. 
One of the first duties of friendship is prayer. 
Perhaps most of us do pray for those we love 
when they are sick or in great trouble. But 
what do we ask for them then? Probably we 
pray that they may recover from their sick- 
ness or be comforted in their trouble. But are 
these love's best intercessions? When our 
friends are sick, it is right for us to pray that 
they may get well, but that should not be 
our only request for them. The sickness has 
[ 247 ] 



Ci^e iLe^^on of JLoiie 



a mission — something it was sent to do in them 
and for them. It would be a great misfortune, 
therefore, if they should recover from their 
illness, and get out into the busy world again, 
and miss receiving the blessing which the ill- 
ness was commissioned to bear to them. While 
then we pray for the curing of our friends, 
that they may return to their duties, we should 
also ask that the will of God in their sickness 
may be done in them. 

Then if we pray for our friends who are in 
sorrow, what should we ask for them? The 
sorrow also comes as God's messenger, bring- 
ing gifts of love. The best blessings of life 
lie beyond experiences of pain, and we cannot 
get the blessings without passing through 
the experiences. We should plead that our 
friends may not miss receiving the gifts which 
the messenger, sorrow, holds in his hands for 
them. It would be very sad if pain or grief 
should come into a life and pass, leaving no 
blessing, no enriching. 

But not only when they are sick or in sorrow 

should we pray for our friends,— they proba- 

[ 248 ] 



bly need our prayers far more when they are 
in health and joy and prosperity. "When 
you see me growing rich," wrote a good man 
to a friend, "pray for my soul." We may all 
say to those who love us and watch over our 
lives, "When I am very happy and very pros- 
perous, and when all things are bringing me 
joy, pray for me." So we should never fail 
to pray for our friends, to beseech of God the 
best things for their lives. Their greatest 
danger is not sickness, nor bereavement, nor 
loss of money, nor pain, but — lest they for- 
get God. 

Thus should we exalt the aims of our friend- 
ships. It is not enough to seek to give pleas- 
ure to those we love, to make them^ happier; 
we should endeavor also to impart to them en- 
during good. And not only to our personal 
friends should we seek thus to do good, but to 
all whose lives we touch. Every one who meets 
us should be the better for it, taking from us 
some inspiration, 

** One bit of courage 
For the darkening sky, one gleam of faith 

[249] 



Cl^e tmon of JLotje 

To brave the thickening ills of life. 

One glimpse of brighter skies beyond the gathering 

mist, 
To make this life more worth while. 
And heaven a surer heritage."*^ 

We are debtors to all men — we owe love and 
love's service to everyone. God sends us to 
carry blessing to each person we meet. It may 
be a lowly one who stands before us to-morrow, 
one who is unworthy, one who has sinned; it 
may be an enemy, one who yesterday wronged 
us, spoke bitter things of us, tried to injure us. 
No matter. We are sent from God with some- 
thing for this very person, whoever or what- 
ever he may be. The love of Christ in us says 
to this man, "I long to impart unto you some 
spiritual gift," and we dare not refuse this 
ministry of love to any being under heaven. 
Then we do not know how sorely he needs us, 
how hungry he is for love, in how great peril 
he is this very moment — sent to us perhaps 
as a refuge, that we may be the bosom of 
Christ to him, that he may be saved by a word, 
a look, a kindness, a prayer, of ours. 

[ 250 ] 



Ci^rijsit in €)ut cBijetttiatJS 



[251] 



" Not mine high place and power; 
But humble task^ 
And duty done each hour^ 
Is all I ask. 

*' To be myself so strong 

I shall not need 

To do another wrong 

By word or deed* 

^' To know the quiet hearty 
The happy mind. 
That come io one whose pa/rt 
Is to be kind.^^ 



[252] 



CHAPTER TWENTY-FIRST 




OME people seem to miss 
altogether the thought of 
bringing Christ into their 
common, everyday life. 
When a Christian young 

man was talking about 

what calling he would choose, expressing much 
uncertainty and perplexity on the subject, he 
was asked if he had prayed about it. He was 
astonished and said he could not think of 
troubling the Lord with such a matter as that. 
There are many good people who have the 
same thought. They suppose that God is in- 
terested only in their spiritual affairs and not 
in their secular matters. 

But that is not the true thought of God's care 
for us. He is Interested in everything that 
concerns us. There is nothing in all the range 
of our life which we may not bring to him. 
There are none of our affairs in which religion 
[ 253 ] 



%\^t tt^mn of toU 



does not have its place. We may make the 
most common things of business as beautiful 
and as holy as a prayer. 

There is a story of an artist in the olden days, 
who was falsely charged with crime and cast 
into prison. He was allowed to have his paints 
and brushes, but no canvas or paper, nothing 
on which he might paint. One day a man came 
to the artist's cell-door and said to him, "I 
wish you would paint me a picture." "I 
would," replied the artist, "if I had anything 
on which to paint it." The visitor looked 
about him, and on the floor of the prison cor- 
ridor he found an old soiled napkin. "Paint 
it on this," he said, as he passed the napkin 
into the cell. The artist began at once, and 
continued his work until the picture was fin- 
ished* It was a picture of the Christ, a mar- 
vellously beautiful one, which afterward found 
a place in one of the old cathedrals. Thus the 
soiled common napkin was redeemed from 
destruction and dishonor, and consecrated to 
highest honor and sacredness. 
There is nothing in all our life, however lowly 
[254] 



and commonplace, however prosaic and secu- 
lar, on which we may not put the name of 
Christ, something of the beauty of Christ. 
There are not two departments in life — one re- 
ligious and one with which religion has noth- 
ing to do. The Sabbath is meant to bring us 
more consciously into the divine presence than 
the other days, that we may worship God, look 
into his face, and get fresh cheer and strength ; 
but we are in God's presence as really on Mon- 
day and Tuesday as on Sunday, and we should 
do the work of the week just as religiously as 
we do our praying and Bible reading. Our 
business should be as devout as our worship. 
"Whatsoever ye do, in word or in deed, do all 
in the name of the Lord Jesus." 
To do things in the name of Christ means, 
for one thing, to do them in Christ's way. The 
commandments are for week-day life — ^we are 
to obey them always. They are as binding 
when we are buying and selling, when we are 
at our daily task-work, when we are seeking 
pleasure or recreation, as when we are engaged 
in some specifically religious duty. There is 
[255] 



Ci^e lejsjson of lolje 



no true success which is not found in the way 
of obedience to the divine law. To disregard 
the commandments in anything is to write 
anathema over it. Some men, indeed, seem to 
ignore God's law and to climb up some other 
way, scaling even to giddy heights. They 
make a great show of prosperity, but it is an 
empty show, which lasts, at the longest, only 
through the earthly life and then vanishes, 
falls to nothing. They who take God's way 
are the only ones who really attain success. 
God's saints are those who do God's will in 
life's common days. 

Sometimes people think that it is utterly im- 
possible for them to live a saintly life where 
their lot is cast. They say it is easy for the 
minister to be a holy man, for he is engaged 
all the time in sacred duties. Or they think of 
some deaconess or of a wcJman set apart in a 
peculiar devotement of some kind to Christian 
work, and say that it is easy for her to be good 
and to keep always near to Christ. But with 
themselves it is altogether different. Their 
time must all be spent in secular work, at some 
[256] 



€^ti^t in €>ur tUtv^av^ 

trade or in household tasks. If they were em- 
ployed all the time in religious duties, it would 
be easy for them to be saintly too. 
But we may do the most common, prosaic 
things in the name of Christ, and this brings 
the lowliest occupation as near to Christ as 
that of the minister or the deaconess. Jesus 
was just as holy in his life and lived just as 
near to God the first thirty years when he was 
a carpenter as the last three years when he was 
engaged in the great work of his Messiahship. 
We may live as saintly lives in the lowliest 
trade or calling as in the most sacred of call- 
ings. 

** The sainthoods of the firesides 

And of the market-place^ — 
They wear no shining halo, 

JVo glory 'lighted face, 

** Each day they do the duty 

The passing hour doth bring, 
Still looking unto Jesus, 

Their chosen Lord and King,^^ 

Doing anything in the name of Christ is also 

doing it for him. We are acting for him, and 

it is the same as if he himself had done it. 

[ 257 ] 



Cl^e le^jSon of toU 



What a hallowing of our lives there would be 
if we always remembered that we are here thus 
in Christ's name, to do what he would do if 
he were where we are, doing the things that 
are set for us to do ! What a splendor there 
would be in even the lowliest tasks, if we con- 
sciously lived in this way ! How dull, com- 
monplace duties would be transformed ! How 
glad we should be to do the most lowly things ! 
Then how well we would do everything ! There 
would be no skimping of our work, no slight- 
ing of it, no half-doing of it. No duty would 
seem unworthy of us, too small or too menial 
for us. Browning tells of an angel who took 
a boy's place at a lowly task while the boy in 
his discontent was away from it, and did it 
year after year as cheerfully, as joyfully, as 
patiently, and as well as if it had been the 
highest service of heaven. If only we could 
always keep in mind that we are working in 
the name of Christ, we should never find any 
task irksome nor any duty hard. 
If we really know the name of Christ as we 
may know it, all life would be changed for us. 
[258] 



€W^t in €>ur c^tiertDai?^ 

In Henry van Dyke's beautiful story— "The 
Lost Word" — we are told how Hermas, who 
had become a follower of Christ, was tempted 
to part with the one word which was the key 
to all the treasures of life and hope. In return 
for this word thus parted with he got riches, 
pleasure, and power. But he went through 
life unable any more to find the lost word. In 
time of need or sorrow or peril he would begin 
to recall the comfort, the hope, the joy, he 
had once known, but all was blank. "Where 
was the word — the word that he had been 
used to utter night and morning, the word 
that had meant to him more than he had 
ever known ? What had become of it ?^^ But 
he could not find it. Someone had taken 
it away. At last the day came when the ter- 
rible bargain was annulled and Hermas was 
restored to peace. He found again the word 
the loss of which had left him in such darkness. 
It was given back to him. It was this sweet, 
precious, blessed Name. 

If we know this Name, it is the key to all that 

is beautiful, true, and eternal. No burden 

[ 259 ] 



Ci^e lejsjson of lotje 



would seem heavy if we bore it in Christ's 
name and for him. No cross would be too 
hard to carry if this Name were written on it. 
No work would seem hard if we were doing it 
consciously for our Master. If we remem- 
bered him, and saw his eyes of love looking 
down upon us continually, we could not let the 
hateful mood stay in our hearts, we could not 
do the mean or wicked thing, we could not say 
the bitter, cutting word, we could not, by our 
wretched jealousy, hurt the gentle heart that 
never had given us anything but love. Then 
this little prayer would be our daily morning 
prayer : 

** Grant us, Lord, the grace to hear 

The little prickling thorn ; 
The hasty word that seems unfair ; 

The twang of truths well worn ; 
The jest which makes our weakness plain ; 

The darling plan overturned ; 
The careless touch upon our pain ; 

The slight we have not earned ; 
The rasp of care, dear Lord, to-day. 

Lest all these fretting things 
Make needless grief, oh give, we pray^ 

The heart that trusts and sings, ' ' 
[260] 



This name of Christ tests all life for us. Any- 
thing over which we cannot write this blessed 
name is unfit for us to do. What we cannot 
do in this name we ought not to do at all. 
The friendship on which we cannot put "in 
the name of Jesus" is not a friendship we 
should take into our life. The business we 
cannot conduct in Christ's name we would bet- 
ter not try to conduct at all. The gate over 
which this Name is not carved we should not 
enter. 



[261] 



9In Cune twitl^ d^oD 



[263] 



There was never a song that was sung by thee^ 
But a sweeter one was meant to he. 

There was never a deed that was grandly done^ 
But a greater was meant hy some earnest one. 

For the sweetest voice can never impart 
The song that trembles within the heart. 

And the brain and hand can never quite do 
The thing that the soul has fondly in view. 

And hence are the tears and the burden of pain^ 
For the shining goals are never to gain. 

And the real song is ne'er heard by man^ 
Nor the work ever done for which we plan. 

But enough that a God can hear and see 
The song and the deed that ivere meant to be. 

Benjamin R. Bulkeley. 



[264] 



CHAPTER TWENTY-SECOND 



9In Cune totti^ (0OD 




N music everything depends 
on tune. It is so also in 
living. Many people are 
like instruments out of 
tune, sometimes badly out 
of tune. There is no sweet- 
ness in their lives. The chords of their being 
are jangled. The object of Christian culture 
is to bring our lives into perfect tune, so that 
they will give forth sweet music. The stand- 
ard key to which all lives are to be tuned is 
the life of God himself. This attunement is 
the work of the whole life — it takes all our 
earthly years to come into perfect accord with 
the music of heaven. 

Some people do not like theological terms. 
Such terms suggest to them abstruse doctrines 
which are not easily understood. One of these 
disliked words is "atonement." There are 
wide differences of opinion concerning its 
[265] 



Ci^e iLejs^on of lote 



meaning. Many ecclesiastical battles have 
been waged round this word. We need not 
linger now to discuss meanings or wage over 
again old controversies. Yet there is a beau- 
tiful meaning in the word in which all may 
agree. It means attunement — ^the bringing 
of two persons, hitherto at variance, into cor- 
dial and kindly relations. The theological 
meaning is the reconciling of God and man, 
the bringing of them together in love and 
friendship — that is, the bringing of men into 
harmony and fellowship with God. God al- 
ways loves us, but we have to learn to love 
him. That is what religion is intended to do 
in us — to lift us into harmony with God. 
It takes our discordant lives and brings them 
into tune with the holy life of Christ who was 
the revealing of God. 

Before we can receive the blessings of the 
heavenly life, our hearts must be made ready, 
must be in tune with God himself. In wireless 
telegraphy, the receiver must be perfectly at- 
tuned to its transmitter, or it will not get the 
message. Little waves of ether are set in mo- 
1^266] 



g|n Cune totti^ cBoli 



tion and ripple out in all directions, as when a 
pebble is dropped into a quiet baj^ and starts 
wavelets which widen out and roll on till they 
have touched every shore. There may be a 
thousand stations, with their wires and elec- 
trical apparatus, but only the receivers which 
are in tune with the transmitter sending the 
message can get it. 

God's love sweeps out from his heart over all 
the world. It comes to the door of every life. 
There is not one person anywhere among all 
earth's families, however far off he may be, 
whom God does not love. But there are many 
who know nothing of that love, into whose 
hearts the consciousness of the love never 
comes. The message of grace is for all, but 
only those whose lives are in tune with the life 
of God, hear it. The divine summons is, "He 
that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit 
saith." In one of the psalms we read 

** The friendship of Jehovah is with them that 
fear him ; 
And he will show them his covenant. ' ' 

Only those who fear God, that is, who love 
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him, trust him, do his will, and are in accord 
with him, receive the secret revealings of his 
friendship. 

The standard of spiritual attunement is the 
will of God. Every note is to be keyed to that, 
We are to learn to say always, "Thy will be 
done." In the Scriptures, good men are 
sometimes said to walk with God. That is, 
they go in God's way, think God's thoughts, 
and obey God's commandments. "Shall two 
walk together, except they have agreed.'^" All 
over the world saintly ones are walking with 
God all these common days. When he speaks 
they listen to his voice and answer. Yes. Their 
communion with him is never broken. The 
music in their hearts never ceases and is never 
jarred and spoiled by discords. 
We cannot see God with our natural eyes, but 
if our hearts are in tune with his Spirit, we 
are conscious of his presence, and its blessing 
flows into our lives. Our beholding him does 
not depend on the darkness or the light. We 
can see flowers and trees and human faces only 
in the day, when the sun is shining. We can 
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31n %unt ^JDitt) d^oD 



see the stars only at night, when the sun has 
gone down. But our seeing God depends on 
our own hearts. A little rhyme tells of a 
mother's talk with her child: 

** It is dark, the night is come, 
And the world is hushed and dumb ; 
Sleep, my darling, God is here!— '' 

'' Shall I see him, mother dear V 

** It is day, the sun is bright, 

And the world is laid in light ; 

Wake, my darling, God is here ! — " 
** Shall I see him, mother dear f " 

** JYot the day^s awakening light. 
Babe, can show thee God aright ; 
Not the dark, that brings thee sleep, 
Him can from my darling keep, 

** Day and night are his, to fill ; 
We are his, to do his will ; 
Do his will, and never fear ; 
Thou Shalt see him, baby dear,'"'* 

Some good people have the impression that 
Christian joy comes only as the result of emo- 
tional experiences. No doubt there are those 
who are lifted up at times on the high tides 
of spiritual feeling. But really the only true 
basis for a glad life is obedience to the divine 
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Ci^e tmon of fiot>z 

commandments. Jesus lived the perfect life. 
His joy was never broken. There was never 
any interruption in his communion with his 
Father. And the secret of his gladness was 
his patient, quiet, unbroken doing of the di- 
vine will. He said of his Father, "He hath 
not left me alone ; for I do always the things 
that are pleasing to him." Then he gave his 
disciples the secret of a joyous life in the 
words, "If ye keep my commandments, ye 
shall abide in my love; even as I have kept 
my Father's commandments, and abide in his 
love." 

Could any teaching be plainer than this ? We 
are in tune with God when we obey his words 
without question and when we acquiesce 
quietly and trustfully in his will. Disobedi- 
ence always makes discord. It is so in music. 
When the singer or the player strikes a wrong 
note, the harmony is broken. It is so in life. 
So long as we are obedient, sweetly accepting 
God's way, however it may break into our 
way, patiently enduring pain, or sorrow, or 
loss, when God wills it so, we make pleasing 
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9In '^unt tDit]^ (Bon 



music. But the moment we fail to obey some 
word of our Master's, or do some evil thing, 
or resist some pleading of love, or rebel 
against some hard experience, there is dis- 
cord; at once we are out of tune with God 
and our joy is broken. 

The object of all spiritual training is to bring 
our lives into tune with God. Toward this we 
strive in all our training and discipline. We 
begin very far away and at the best we are 
only learners. Heaven always keeps above us 
at our best. But we are living worthily only 
when we are getting a little more into the 
heavenly spirit every day. We never can enter 
heaven until we have brought heaven down 
into our hearts. We would not be happy there 
if we had not learned heaven's lessons before 
we go there. All the qualities of beautiful 
character set for us in the word of God are 
things that belong to the perfected life. Of 
a great artist one wrote : 

** His face a mirror of his holy mind; 
His mind a temple for all lovely things to flock to 
And inhabit** 

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Ci^e lejsjion of lolje 



This should be true of every good life. Evil 

things should be cast out, and whatsoever 

things are lovely should have their home in the 

heart. 

The life that is in tune with God is keyed to 

the note of love. "He that loveth not knoweth 

not God ; for God is love." Any unlovingness 

in thought, feeling, word, or act makes discord 

in the music of our life. We are brought into 

close, intimate, and unhindered relations with 

God, only as we have learned the lesson of 

love. This includes loving relations with men 

as well as with God. We are besought by Saint 

Paul not to grieve the Spirit of God. It is a 

startling thought that the Holy Spirit loves 

us enough to be hurt by anything we may do 

or may fail to do. The words which follow 

this exhortation show us how we may thus 

grieve the divine heart : "Let all bitterness, and 

wrath, and anger, and clamor, and railing, be 

put away from you, with all malice : and be ye 

kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving 

each other, even as God also in Christ forgave 

you.*' This is the way to get in tune with 

God. 

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Sn %nnt toiti^ (15oti 



We can please God and enjoy his favor only 
when we love. Any failure in loving inter- 
rupts the consciousness of God's presence. 
John Wesley wrote in his diary one day, "To- 
day I grieved the divine Spirit by speaking 
uncharitably of one who is not sound in the 
faith. Immediately I was in great darkness." 
We cannot keep the peace of God in our hearts 
unless our human relations are as they should 
be. We cannot claim to be Christians unless 
we love others. "As I have loved you, that ye 
also love one another." One of the benefits of 
prayer is that it keeps us in tune with God. 
A good man was overheard saying one night 
at the close of his devotions, "Dear Lord Jesus, 
we are on the same old terms." There was no 
discord in the music of his communion with 
Christ. 

We are taught to pray always, after every re- 
quest we make, "Thy will, not mine, be done." 
If we do this sincerely it will always bring us 
into complete agreement with God. When we 
first begin our pleading we may be insubmis- 
sive; at least we may not be ready to accept 
God's will and take up the burden of sorrow, 
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Ci^e umon of toU 

disappointment, or trial, laid at our feet. But 
as we continue to pray, "Not my will, but 
thine, be done," gradually the struggle grows 
less intense and our mind comes more and 
more into the mood of quiet acquiescence, until 
at last all resistance has ceased and the peace 
of God fills our hearts. 

We have a high example of this in our Lord's 
own pleading in Gethsemane. When he went 
away alone the first time his prayer was, "My 
Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass away 
from me: nevertheless, not as I will, but as 
thou wilt." But when he went away a second 
time and prayed, there was a marked change 
in his words : "My Father, if this cannot pass 
away, except I drink it, thy will be done." 
Instead of a strong pleading, as at first, that 
the cup might pass, there was now an accept- 
ance of the fact that it would not pass and 
an acquiescence in the Father's way. His will 
was coming into perfect acquiescence with his 
Father's. 

The same is true in the history of many ear- 
nest prayers. We stand face to face with a 
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gin Cune tofti^ d^oti 



great sorrow and we fall upon our knees and 
plead with God to spare us the grief. We are 
not rebellious, but it seems to us we cannot 
endure it. However, as we pray with all ear- 
nestness and importunit}'-, yet in faith, and 
submissively, there comes into our hearts a 
strange feeling of trust, which deepens into 
peace, until we are ready to acquiesce in 
God's will without any further struggle. 
Our will has been brought into accord with 
God's. 

This is the great work of life — to come into 
tune with God, to grow into such trust that we 
shall rest in God in the silence of love, so to 
lose our wills in God's that there shall never 
be any disharmony in our relations with God. 
The outcome of such a life of acquiescence is 
peace and joy. 

"But I cannot do half those things," said the 
bewildered new pupil to the teacher of physi- 
cal culture, as the two stood together in the 
gymnasium. "I simply cannot do them at 
all." 

"If you could do them there would be little 
[ 275 ] 



C]^e tmon of lotje 



use in your coming here," was the reply. 
"You are here to learn how to do them." 
We say we never can bring our lives into tune 
with God's. We think it will be impossible for 
us to learn to take God's way in all things 
quietly, joyfully, sweetly. But that is just 
what we are here for — ^to be fashioned into the 
likeness of Christ, to learn to live in perfect 
peace. 



[276] 



SEP 19 1903 



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